Buying train tickets in Venice. Photos by Tom Meyers

Two regular contributors to EuroCheapo respond to a good question posed on our blog.

Victor posted on March 11, 2010:

“Hi, three of us have planned a trip to Europe from 27th June 2010 to the 10th July 2010. Our itinerary will take us from London to Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Berlin and back to Paris and London.

We wish to travel extensively by rail. Please help us make a schedule that would enable us to touch all or most of the cities as planned above and at reasonably priced rates. We are all adults above 40 years of age and most likely do not qualify for any discounted fares. Please also inform us when and where rail bookings could be done in the UK. Thanks.”

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Reply from Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner of hidden europe:

Hi Victor,

We cannot help you with all you ask, but we can venture a few comments that will perhaps inform your thinking, as you and your friends plan your journey. In responding to your question, we hope these thoughts will also be of broader interest to folk here on EuroCheapo.

The key thing here is to think very carefully quite what you and your two traveling companions want to get out of your upcoming journey. Is the journey the centrepiece or are your hearts set on getting to know the various cities you plan to visit? We rather sense the latter.

1. Too packed an itinerary

Europe is a lot larger than many outsiders imagine, and your itinerary touches only a small part of western Europe. You have fourteen days for your explorations (including your days of arrival in and departure from Europe). Let’s assume that you spend at least a couple of nights in London after flying in, and you want to be back in London on the eve of your departure. That brings the time available for the round trip through continental Europe down to ten nights.

Taking the fastest trains, your itinerary from London to Rome and back (as specified) would take 75 hours. Are you really thinking of spending six or seven hours every single day on trains? If you use slower night trains, you can sleep from one city to the next, but your 75 hours travel becomes closer to 100 hours.

Our view is that this could so easily turn out to be the trip from hell. Of course, you could use night trains for some legs, but you are still spending much time travelling. At the pace you propose you have only one day to see some cities. Yes, that is do-able, but how much can you see in that time?

Let’s take an example. You could leave your hotel in Rome before 7 AM and be in the middle of Venice in time for lunch. You could sightsee in Venice for the afternoon, and catch a night train at 9 PM direct to Vienna. You would be in the middle of Vienna by 9 AM next morning – great if like us you sleep very well on night trains. But if you don’t sleep perfectly, you could arrive shattered and it’ll be too early to be able to check into a hotel.

The sequence in which you have ordered the cities is very sensible, but the entire itinerary is too condensed. Over a couple of months it could be fun. Packed into a few days, it might become an ordeal. You could possibly shift Amsterdam towards the end as it could easily be accommodated en route from Berlin to London, assuming you had no real wish or need to go back through Paris a second time. So the home stretch back to London would now look as follows:

Berlin to Amsterdam: 7 hrs by day (with one train change en route at Amersfoot)
Amsterdam to London: 5 hrs by day (with one change at Bruxelles Midi)

Moving Amsterdam to later in the sequence then frees you up to take the Palatino night train direct from Paris to Rome. Departure is around 6 PM each day. Lovely train – you can enjoy dinner on board as the countryside south of Paris slips by outside the window. It is a super way to spend a summer evening.

Bear in mind that our aggregate travel figure is time on the actual trains. Add in transfers in each city from hotel to train and vv, and your time for sightseeing is even more eaten up by travelling.

Our feeling is that each city on your list deserves a week – not just a few hours. At the very least, you need two full non-travel days in each city just to begin to scrape the surface. That implies three nights in each city. With the time you have you could perhaps pack in three cities on the continent (ie. apart from London) but surely not more.

2. What kind of Europe

Europe is a continent of countryside and small towns. The places you propose to visit are busy, cosmopolitan, and (dare we say) much favoured by international tourists. They are spots you can be sure of finding Starbucks, crushed ice and waiters who speak English.

But there is another Europe – the Europe favoured by many Europeans. If you could throw in a dose of small town Europe, you would find out so much more about our continent, our lives and our varied cultures. And if you are to travel so fast, then it is easier to get the flavour of a country in a smaller place. Better Bergamo than Rome; better Potsdam, Görlitz or Quedlinburg than Berlin; better Shaftesbury, Lavenham or Cambridge than London.

Why not drop some big cities in favour of smaller places? Relax. Take time and watch the sun set behind the mountains in the Alps. Less might be more.

3. Advance booking is the way to deep discounts

You suggest that you may not qualify for any discounted fare. This is not the case. Anyone in Europe can qualify for a discounted fare.

Let us take Vienna to Berlin as an example, using the only direct trains that link the two cities. These all run via Prague and Dresden (yes… more temptations Victor, we know, for now you’ll surely want to pack in an afternoon in each of those two cities as well).

If you just pitch up in Vienna and buy the Berlin ticket on the day (and that is always possible), the regular one-way fare is €117. If you purchase the ticket well in advance (we always recommend 10 to 12 weeks), then you can ride the same route on the same trains for €29. Even with the cheapest fares, you can still break your journey (in Prague, Dresden or anywhere else on the way), but you have to specify that at the time of booking. With the full fare you do not need to pre-specify stopovers.

If you book slightly in advance, say just a week or two before travel, you will still get a ticket for way less than €117, but it will no longer be €29. For a midweek off-peak day, booked a week in advance, you might pay €49. For a peak summer travel day, you might pay €99. But chances are that you will still get a discount.

But it is not as if students or seniors can somehow get privileged access to the rock bottom €29 fare. You can secure the most heavily discounted fares if you book well in advance. Advance booking is the key to cheap travel – not age.

4. Night train fares and the Eurail pass

If you take our suggestion above of using the Palatino train from Paris to Rome, bear in mind the fares structure. We give this as just one further example of how much fares can vary. That run can cost as little as €76 per person if booked in advance (using the Artesia Depart+Go fare). Or as much as €265 each if you book at short notice and opt for the highest class of accommodation (ie. sole occupancy of a sleeper compartment).

Be wary of rail passes sold outside Europe. If you are doing a very packed itinerary, spending hours each day on trains, they may be great value. But check the small print. For many routes they may not offer entirely free travel.

Let’s go back to our Artesia example above, using the Palatino night train from Paris to Rome. Book now, and as we said you could get tickets for €76. If you have a rail pass that includes either France or Italy, you might imagine you would ride for free. But actually not – a Eurailpass valid in France or Italy will give you a €6 discount on the €76 Depart+Go fare. So you pay €70 in all.

5. More information and booking

Web sites are great for travel planning, and you can book most or even all these tickets online now – even before you leave the US. We would advise that, rather than waiting (as you imply in your question) until you arrive in the UK to book tickets. 

And remember that the best deals will always be on the websites run by the rail operators - not those run by agents outside Europe. To get the best from those websites, use the native language versions of them.

Once your exact itinerary is clear we can advise you the best site to book each leg. You could end up using such a variety of services, that you might be looking to a mix of train companies for your bookings: Eurostar, DB, Thalys, Artesia, SNCF, Trenitalia, SBB, ÖBB and more besides.

With a packed itinerary like this, and so many trains, there will surely be a hitch or two along the way. In such cases, there is no substitute for a printed timetable – and it is good at the planning phase too. We suggest you purchase the current (ie. March 2010) issue of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable. Details are available on the Thomas Cook website. That will be a great asset in planning.

You might also consider getting the June issue in due course too – just to ensure that the schedules you have with you on the actual journey are bang up-to-date.

6. Apologia

So, Victor, we fear we have not answered your questions quite as you would have wished. But we hope that in these words there is something that will assist you in your travel planning. We wish you and your two traveling companions a fun time as you journey through Europe.

Susanne and Nicky run a Berlin-based editorial bureau that supplies text and images to media across Europe. Together they edit hidden europe magazine. You can read more of their writing in their regular e-brief and in the Notes section on their website.

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The lovely town square at Horsovsky Tyn. Photos © hidden europe.

By Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries in Berlin—

Many tourists have a natural herding instinct. (Not you, of course, as you’re surely more discriminating than the average traveler!) However, the overwhelming majority of North Americans visiting the Czech Republic sadly still stay only in Prague.

Until this year, Eurail train passes did not even include the Czech Republic—although holders of Eurail passes valid in Germany or Austria could purchase a vastly overpriced add-on which allowed one return journey from the Czech border to Prague and back via the quickest route. It’s no surprise, therefore, that pass holders didn’t wander around the Czech Republic, but made a quick dash to the capital, stayed the usual two or three nights, and then headed straight back for the border.

One other Czech destination, Cesky Krumlov, developed a fad appeal for a spell, and backpackers drinking their way through Europe flocked to the small town in southern Bohemia only to find that the place also holds a magnetic pull for elderly Austrians who make day trips to Cesky Krumlov to indulge in coffee and cake.

Beyond Prague and Cesky Krumlov

Yet “Off the Beaten Path” Bohemia is a superbly good value, a part of Europe where the prices of accommodation, food, drinks and travel have scarcely risen over the last decade. Bohemia boasts some of the finest town squares in Europe and, for those who know their Hussites from their Habsburgs, some wonderful insights into the religious, political, and social history of central Europe.

5 Star Attractions in Bohemia

So, especially for EuroCheapo, here is the hidden europe quintet of perfect Bohemian hideaways. These are small towns, and are all very different places. Each surely warrants a visit in its own right, but taken as a fivesome, the quintet offer the very best of hidden Bohemia.

Western Bohemia: Horsovsky Tyn and Domazlice

Domazlice's town square.

Horsovsky Tyn and Domazlice are our two top choices for western Bohemia. The two towns are near the Bavarian border and just a dozen miles apart. They both boast superb town squares, utterly different from each other, but very beautiful. Both spots are about three hours by fast train from Prague.

Heading North: Litomerice

The city of Litomerice in northern Bohemia combines Hussite tradition with an almost Mediterranean, laid back approach to life. With another great central square, one of the largest in Europe, the city is by far the most accessible from Prague of our quintet of Bohemian stars, being just eighty minutes by train from the Czech capital.

Spa Diversions: Frantiskovy Lazne

Tucked away in the far northwest corner of both Bohemia and the Czech Republic are several small towns that deserve to be much better known. Some travellers have discovered the spa towns of Marianske Lazne (Marienbad) and Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad). But few foreigners venture to Frantiskovy Lazne, in our opinion the nicest of the trio of Czech spa towns close to the German border. It is four hours by direct train from Prague.

Following Goethe: Loket

Our fifth and last star town is Loket, a little hilltop town which the German poet Goethe is alleged to have said was his favorite spot in world. (This might be taken with a pinch of salt as Goethe was deeply infatuated with a local girl at the time, and nothing undermines impartiality of judgement quite like being in love.) It is four hours by train from Prague with one change along the way.

Eurail and the Czech Republic

We have already noted above that Eurail has extended its coverage to include the entire Czech Republic. But train fares are so remarkably cheap that purchasing a pass is hardly worthwhile. A one-way journey from Prague to the remotest corner of Bohemia by bus and train will never cost more than a few euros.

About the authors: Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner are regular contributors to EuroCheapo and together edit hidden europe magazine. Their writing and photogaphy regularly feature in various European media.

Popularity: 8% [?]

A Deutsche Bahn train in Berlin's main station. Photo by hidden europe.

By Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries—

Okay, we’ve said it before, but we’ll gladly say it again. Have Cheapos realised just how much rail fares in Europe can vary according to where you purchase your tickets?

We took a day out from our regular work with hidden europe magazine last week and conjured up a tempting palette of trips criss-crossing the continent. And then we compared the ticket prices on a national rail website (that of the Deutsche Bahn) with the prices offered for those journeys by rail ticketing agents based in Britain and North America. We took care to ensure that the tickets we purchased were in every case for exactly the same trains.

So a straight comparison, comparing like-with-like. Same class of travel, same comfy seat, same scenery slipping by outside the window – for all five routes in our basket of European rail trips.

The five routes we tested

1. Berlin to London single (by day, depart after 9:00 AM, any route) on September 3: one adult, 2nd class.
2. Amsterdam to Salzburg single (by day, no more than one change of train) on July 14: one adult, 1st class.
3. London to Cologne via Brussels single (depart at 8:00 AM or later) on September 10: one adult, 2nd class.
4. Berlin to Zagreb single via Hamburg (2 night stop) and Munich (2 night stop) on August 20: one adult, any class.
5. Nuremberg to Dresden same day return (direct trains only) on June 20 for a family of five, 2nd class.

For each of these five journeys, we thought that the German Railways (viz. Deutsche Bahn) website at www.bahn.de would offer some reasonable fare advice, and so it did. Indeed, all five journeys could be booked online through their website.

Then we turned to agents selling rail tickets in North America and Britain to get quotes for precisely the same journeys. This was done first by online research, often followed up by telephone calls to check precise details.

The results

And guess what? The leading agencies specializing in European rail tickets always charged at least twice as much as would the Deutsche Bahn for exactly the same journey.

The key point here is that in most of Europe, rail operators have a whole raft of special promotional fares that massively undercut the regular tariffs (often with discount of more than 80% on the standard fare). But agents rarely offer those discounted fares, preferring to safeguard their hefty commission fees by selling only the full fare.

Comparing the fares

Now take a look at how those fares compared. Listed below are the Deutsche Bahn (DB) fares that were available for purchase around midday of Friday, June 12, 2009 followed by the cheapest fare quoted the same day by a leading North American or British agent (all sterling and dollar fares have been converted to euros just to make things clearer).

1. Berlin to London (2nd class) DB: €49 / Agent Fare: €209
2. Amsterdam to Salzburg (1st class) DB: €79 / Agent Fare: €255
3. London to Cologne (2nd class) DB: €49 / Agent Fare: €106
4. Berlin to Zagreb with stops in Hamburg and Munich (2nd class) DB: €29 / Agent Fare: €322
5. Nuremberg to Dresden day return for family of 5 (2nd class) DB: €37 / Agent Fare: €705

Helpful advice?

We found one leading British agent who was extremely helpful on the phone, going to some lengths to suggest that for certain routes it might be wiser to get the tickets from a German source (but declining to give the specific name of the company or website).

A well-known North American agent emphasized that their dollar fares on offer would undercut anything we might purchase in Europe – a claim which is patently undermined by the results of our survey. The North American agent suggested that a rail pass might be a better bet for some of our journeys, and hinted that we would encounter a range of problems if we attempted to purchase directly from the Deutsche Bahn website.

Booking tickets in advance

The reality is that booking train tickets on www.bahn.de is pretty easy, even without a knowledge of German. The site has a decent English language interface, though in some instances you will find additional functionality on the German language website.

Also, it really helps to have a good knowledge of European patterns of service and railway geography. A good place to start is by studying the latest edition of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable and the same company’s Rail Map of Europe.

Booking well in advance is often the key to finding cheap fares, but our research found that plenty of discounted promotional fares are still available for travel this summer. And we did not cast around trying to dig up the cheapest possible travel dates, having fixed our palette of routes and travel dates before embarking on our research. If you would like the see the full results of our survey, just click here.

And, oh yes, just in case you were wondering, we were paid not a cent by the Deutsche Bahn to publish this!

About the authors: Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner are regular contributors to EuroCheapo and together edit hidden europe magazine. They live in Berlin.

Popularity: 40% [?]

A German train pulls into station. Photo by Francois Roche. 

It is that time of year when many travellers start sketching out their plans for 2009 trips to Europe. And for travel within Europe, many of the continent’s budget airlines will unveil their summer 2009 schedules in the coming weeks. Book early for the best discounts.

Plan ahead: Rail travel for next year

Rail travelers can still take a while refining their travel plans for summer 2009, for although many of the schedules are now becoming available, tickets do not generally go on sale until two to four months prior to travel.

The extension of the Europa-Spezial scheme to encompass many more countries means that canny travellers can now plan long treks across Europe with rail fares that greatly undercut even the lowest air fares.

Europa-Spezial: Great value for money

Europa-Spezial fares can be booked online at the German Railways website. Tickets generally go on sale 90 days prior to travel, so bookings can already be made for January 2009.

Choose your trains carefully and you can travel from Budapest to Cologne for just €39 one way - and you can include stopovers on the way (each for a maximum of 48 hours). We chose a Budapest - Prague - Berlin - Cologne routing, with en route stops for two nights in both Prague and Berlin, and found plenty of availability for mid-January 2009 at the lead-in €39 fare.

Other gems there for the taking are €29 one-way from Hamburg to Vienna (via Prague), €39 from Paris or Copenhagen to any station in Germany, and a €39 fare that will take you from any station in Belgium or the Netherlands to Basel on the Swiss border or to Salzburg in Austria.

First class options: Worth considering, even for Cheapos

If the lowest fare for your selected route is already sold out, you can still buy a Europa-Spezial ticket, but it will be priced at a higher tariff tier (e.g. €49, €69, and up). Europa-Spezial fares are also available for first class, and these are really worth checking.

Berlin to Vienna (either direct or with a one or two night stopover in Dresden) for €49 first class sounds almost too good to be true. If you find little availability for Europa-Spezial fares in second class, just have a look to see if the cheapest first class option is still available. First class sells out less quickly, and we have found many examples of journeys where remaining first class availability is cheaper than heavily-booked second class.

The great thing about these Europa-Spezial fares is that, subject to availability at the time of booking, you really can use them on the fast express services. The only real snag is that you must commit yourself to date and time of travel, but at such rock bottom fares that is scarcely a burden.

The new Europa-Spezial fares, along with long-standing promotions like discounted TGV fares in France, might really tip the balance as you weigh up whether it is worth buying a rail pass for 2009.

This article is by Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries, who together edit hidden europe magazine, which explores people, places and communities across Europe. Every issue of hidden europe includes a lot of tips on budget travel, especially by rail.

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A few thoughts on great travel deals from the editors of hidden europe magazine.

BERLIN — We are often amazed at how much money North American visitors to Europe pay for rail passes, especially when, with a little advance planning, travelers can often reap great savings through pre-purchase of point-to-point tickets. These are not tickets marketed with hefty surcharges by overseas agents, but rather the promotional fares available directly from the various rail operators in Europe, usually through online sales.

But the question is not simply one of rail pass vs. individual tickets. It is also always worth looking at local rail pass offerings.

For Example, Czech Out This Deal

Eurail offers a pass that affords eight days unlimited first class travel in the Czech Republic for $359. Better to wait till you arrive in the Czech Republic, and for less money you can buy a pass that affords an entire month’s travel.

And for those who think an entire month in the Czech Republic is a bit much, the Czech Railways sell a one-week pass, too. Try $80 for second class travel for a week, and a small premium of about $16 more will secure first-class comfort, if that’s important to you. You can check those prices here (in Czech crowns).

Slow Travel Dividends

Canny Cheapos search around for bargain local passes, and they are to be found in most parts of Europe.

Hats off to five friends who visited us in Berlin yesterday evening, having traveled all the way from Vienna by local trains. Vienna to Passau on Saturday, stopping off overnight in the Danube town, then continuing from Passau up to Berlin on Sunday. Yes, it took a while, about 16 hours traveling in all, compared with 10 hours on the fast train. But fun they said, and a journey full of those happy insights into rural life that makes slow trains so appealing.

What did they pay? Just €63 in all. That’s not per person, but for all of them! Less than €13 a head for a big leap across Europe. This was easily done with a smart combination of the Austrian Einfach-Raus Ticket and the German Schönes-Wochenende Ticket (Happy Weekend Ticket), both one-day rail passes sold in the countries concerned. Totally flexible. No need to pre-book, and you can travel at will on all trains except the fast express services.

British Bargains

Regional passes are available for travel in many parts of Britain and, for visitors focusing on just one region of the country, they are a fine deal, knocking spots off BritRail prices.

For example, if Wales is your focus, and you plan on having a week in the principality, why pay $329 for a four-day BritRail pass, when you can pick up a Freedom of Wales ticket for just $140 – four days travel within Wales and the nearby border areas of England within an eight-day period. What’s more, the locally-purchased pass is valid on almost all bus services in Wales, too. That’s not the case with BritRail.

Similar passes, usually priced between $100 and $150 are available for most other UK regions (eg. SW England, the North), typically offering four days of travel in any eight-day period or sometimes travel on seven consecutive days.

Get on board

Why not research local rail passses by checking out the national websites of the following European rail operators? Do check that that you really are using the “official” national rail websites and not a site developed by a third-party vendor or agency.

Each of the companies mentioned below has good local railpasses that can all offer much better deals that Eurail prices:

www.oebb.at (ÖBB, Austria)

www.cd.cz (CD, Czech Rep)

www.vr.f (VR, Finland)

www.bahn.de (Die Bahn, Germany)

www.nationalrail.co.uk (all rail operators in Great Britain)

www.mav.hu (MAV, Hungary)

www.irishrail.ie (Iarnród Éireann, Ireland)

www.ns.nl (Dutch Railways)

www.pkp.pl (PKP, Poland)

www.sbb.ch (Switzerland)

This is the latest in a summer series of postings by Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries. The Berlin-based duo are the editors of hidden europe magazine. Cheapos can preview the contents of the July 2008 issue of hidden europe by clicking here.

Popularity: 16% [?]

photograph courtesy of Newtonxl at Flickr

We’re big fans of the French TGV rail system. These sleek trains zip throughout the country, transporting passengers comfortably at speeds up to 200 mph. The trains are such a success that short flights between most cities in France don’t make sense — the TGV is faster, and much less of a hassle.

Tickets, however, can be kind of expensive — if you simply show up at the train station and purchase one on the spot for that day. But happily, they can also be a complete steal, and cheaper, in fact, than low-cost flights!

For instance, consider these TGV rates, taken from the website of the SNCF, the French National Railway:

For travel today: A 2nd Class refundable ticket booked today (on their site) for travel today (January 3, 2008) from Paris to Marseille costs €96.

For travel tomorrow: Most of the fares remain the same for travel tomorrow, at €96. However, the TGV offers cheaper Internet-only discount rates on its iDTGV lines (TGV trains outfitted with specially-themed cars for different atmospheres, including a “zen” quiet car!). On the iDTGV line, we found one €69 rate, for a 2nd Class, non-refundable ticket.

For travel next week: Rates start falling, however, when you book a week in advance. For the same Paris to Marseille route, we saw many of the same €96 rates (it is, after all, a Friday), but found more of the cheapies, including several €44.90 tickets, both in 1st and 2nd class (non-refundable)!

For travel next month: If you book even further out, say one month in advance, and travel on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you could find even cheaper fares. For the same route on February 12, we found €19 2nd class seats, and €24 seats in 1st class!

Please note that these rates were taken from the official website of the SNCF. We found these rates by clicking on the French flag to remain inside the French portion of the site. When you click the US flag, you’re taken to the RailEurope.com website, which is, of course, in English.

We appreciate the service that RailEurope provides and partner with them on Eurail passes in our rail pass guide. The prices quoted, however, on their website for the same trips mentioned above are more expensive than the prices you’ll find on the SNCF site, even after you consider exchange rates.

For example, the cheapest fare we found for the Paris-Marseille route next week was $153 2nd Class, $212 1st Class. Rates for next month are much cheaper, mostly $80, although we found some seats for $41 in 2nd class. We couldn’t find 1st class cheaper than $124.

Some tips for booking a cheap TGV ticket

1) Try booking directly through the SNCF on their website in French. At least give it a shot — you probably won’t have any trouble navigating the site.

2) Book as far in advance as possible.

3) Travel on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and be flexible with your hours.

4) Consider trying out one of the new iDTGV trains. They’re just as fast, and they’re kind of fun.

5) Do plenty of searches and look at all the times available. You will probably find a wide range of ticket prices.

We hope these thoughts are helpful. Please send us your thoughts, tips, and advice for traveling cheaply by train!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Photo by seadipper

You’re strolling around Venice when suddenly it strikes: an insatiable craving for Mélange mit Schlagobers. Where did this hankering for the whipped, caffeinated Austrian delight come from? Who knows? In any case, you need to get yourself to Vienna pronto.

Taking the night train from Venice to Vienna is an old Cheapo trick. Why does it make sense?

For one, hotel rates in Venice are notoriously inflated, from €100 to €200 per night, with a few one-star pensions and hostels running cheaper. In comparison, a 2nd class overnight ticket between Venice and Vienna costs about €75. If you have a Eurail pass, traveling on the Allegro line can be even cheaper. Deals are also sometimes offered on the route—over one Easter weekend not long ago, we scored a €45 ticket.

Once you’re in Vienna, there are more affordable hotels to choose between. You’ll pay between €45 and €75 for a cheap room. A more upscale room can be had for between €75 and €149, leaving you enough money to go on a ravenous strüdel binge. What happens in Vienna, stays in Vienna, after all.

SkyEurope flies between Venice and Vienna for even less. This summer they’re offering €.01 fares, which swell to €19 once taxes are taken into consideration. Cheap, no question, but traveling by night train allows you to consolidate your lodging and transportation costs and eliminate time- and euro-sucking trips to the airport.

Popularity: 16% [?]