Train from Budapest to Prague

Hotel: Mosaic Design Hotel

Our train departed at 7:30. We wanted to make sure we found the right platform and could load our bikes in plenty of time, so we packed up early and covered the half mile or so to the station. We spent some time reading the travel boards with Google translate, but boarding turned out to be easy, and our bikes with bags were easy to hang in our reserved spaces on the train. We were able to get coffee and croissants from a kiosk at the station well before the train left. 

The train was supposed to arrive to Prague around 2:15, so it would be a long ride, but we could get up and stretch and walk around a little. For the stretch to Bratislava, a cyclist from Israel was sitting opposite us. He was taking the train to Bratislava and riding back to Budapest where he would meet his family for a further vacation. We compared bikepacking notes and gave him our recommendations. He had travelled quite a bit around the world, and was an interesting conversationalist, so time passed quickly until he got off at Bratislava. We never exchanged names, but we wished him a good journey.

After Bratislava, we went to the crowded dining car, but never got food due to miscommunication with the waitress.  Communication has been surprisingly easy on this trip, so we were probably due for a miss. We returned to our seats and had our packed chips and cookies instead.

We arrived in Prague around 3pm, a little delayed, but all was good. We wheeled our bikes thru the train station, up some stairs, down an escalator. The ride to our hotel was short. Traffic was a little crazy, but after a few weeks of riding in the area it wasn’t too challenging. At our hotel we put our bikes in the garage, and we were happy to see that our bike boxes were still there. Getting a new bike box in Prague seems like it would be extremely challenging, so having boxes makes onward travel easy, even the one that was quite chewed up on our way over. 

After the assortment of hotels we’ve stayed on during this trip, we could appreciate how charming the Mosaic Design House is: comfortable, well located, nicely furnished, a good cafe and attached restaurant… We feel lucky to have found this place.

We had dinner in the QQ Asian Kitchen attached to the hotel, an assortment of appetizers and dishes similar to our dinner three weeks ago and equally good. Then we called it a night.