One of our lovely clients has recently returned from a European Rail Trip that they booked through us. We wanted to share this amazing feedback as it is an interesting read for anyone thinking of doing a similar thing.

'' The flights and rail journeys all went to plan. Apart from the seat issue Prague to Vienna, the first class option was a good one, though the service differed. It was all at-seat service, but Prague to Vienna you got free drinks (water, prosecco, orange juice, tea and coffee) and paid for food, but Bratislava to Budapest you paid for everything! The hotels were all excellent, good rooms and food, and handy for the trains and the city sights. 

It was a good way to see 4 capital cities in one trip without the faff of lots of airports and waiting around time. I was a bit concerned that we would have 4 of the same holidays (eat, drink, walk, castle, cathedral...) and we'd be bored by the time we got to Budapest, so although we did do all of those things we also tried to do different things, too. 

Prague - my favourite of the 4 destinations! We bought the 48 hour Prague visitor pass which gave us free entry to lots of attractions and all the transport options. We did 7 of the attractions on the long list (50+) of free entry attractions plus the trams and Metro, and just about saved money. We might have done the river boat cruise and the Pilsner brewery tour but ran out of time. Highlights here were the Spanish Synagogue in the Jewish quarter and the Basilica at Vysehrad. The whole Vysehrad area was brilliant and a lot less crowded than the Charles Bridge and castle areas (rammed!). I loved walking along the river bank in the evening when it was all lit up, absolutely beautiful. We found a couple of excellent local restaurants not too far from the hotel which were mainly full of locals and we enjoyed the local food, beer and hospitality. My only complaint is that I had neckache from looking up at all the fabulous buildings!

Vienna - I had printed off the 7 walking tours from the official Vienna tourist site "ivie" before we went, and we walked most of them. They were clear and informative. I also downloaded the ivie app, which was useful. We decided not to get the city pass as we didn't want to go in many places, the card just gave lots of discounts to entry, and the one we did want to visit wasn't included! We bought tickets to the 3 galleries at the Belvedere and spent at least half a day there, the highlight being the Klimt artworks. It's a beautiful site with lovely gardens as well as the buildings. The other thing we prebooked was a football match at Austria Vienna (great fun!), so we bought a 24 hour transport ticket to get to the ground which we also used to visit some other places we didn't fancy walking to. There was a fabulous and big food market down the road from the hotel at Karlsplatz, lots of choice. 

Bratislava - the smallest of the cities and 2 nights/1 full day was enough to see all the sites. We walked to the Slavin memorial, the castle and all around the old town. We paid to go around the old town hall, incorporating the bell tower and an excellent local history of the city told through the eyes of various prominent families. The whole of "middle European" history is so complicated and it was good to learn a bit more, though you realise that actually you know very little! 

Budapest - again, we decided not to get the city pass as it just gave discounts, but we did get the transport pass for 2 days via the Budapest Go app., which was useful and very cheap, about £6 per day. The Heroes Square and park area was beautiful, especially when lit up at night. We booked a guided tour of the castle area with Get your Guide, which was excellent, and paid to go in St Stephen's basilica and St Matthew's church. Again, it was lovely to walk along the river in the evening and we also set the alarm and got up at daybreak to see the sunrise and avoid the crowds. We found it was more expensive to eat out in Budapest than the other places and it was difficult to avoid hordes of tourists.

Everywhere felt safe and we enjoyed walking around and discovering new places. We averaged 25k steps per day for our 11 days! And that was as well as using the transport quite extensively in 3 cities. Thank you for organising such a lovely trip for us. We enjoyed the train travel and definitely would do something similar to different places ''.