"Prague & Budapest" Topic

I am planning on a family tour in the near future. Does anyone have some suggestions for must see or must have?

I am subject to "Oh shiney" like most gamers so suggest away.

Prague Castle is a must and make sure you climb to the top of the Cathedral tower.

They change the guard at the castle gate over lunchtime. Their Armani uniforms are very smart.

The Charles Bridge and the Old Town Square complete with the Astronomical Clock are good tourist visits.

Also the Jan Žižka monument, the largest bronze horse in the world, and I mean it is 'BIG'.

There is a military museum complete with a T34 outside in the city centre, an airforce museum just outside town and a great tank museum a short train journey away which had a pink russian tank last time I was there.

No shortage of good restaurants as well as classical music if you are into that sort of thing.

And at least three model shops in town.

The zoo is pretty good too!

The army museum in Prague is open all year but I think that the airforce museum closes at the end of October, and the tank museum in Lesany is only open during the summer. vhu.cz/english-summary

Also worth a visit in Prague is the technical museum. ntm.cz/en

Budapest has also a military museum, located somewhere around Budavar castle. When I visited it, entrance was free.

Not the biggest military museum, but still worth reserving a couple of hours for a visit.

Wallenstein's garden and palace in Prague, it's near Charles bridge. The entry to the garden is free, not sure if you can visit the palace though. For a good and cheap restaurant, check out stoleti.cz.

We found Prague stupidly busy. The sights advised above -- the castle, bridge etc -- were too crowded to be fun for us, regardless of how cool they were. Prague castle was good, but I doubt anyone doesn't go there. We found that if you move only a short distance away you can avoid all the people.

From Budapest we took the train to Esztergom and then the boat back. That allowed a good look outside the city without having to drive anywhere. There might be trips to Visegrad Castle as well.

From Prague stayed a couple of nights in Olomouc (Olomutz) which is lovely. Got there by train, but we should have hired a car and stayed a bit longer.

As a wargamer I am much more interested in the countryside than I am in the cities. Plus all the city castles have been prettified, and the real medieval ones are out of town. So train/car trips are a must for me.

It depends a lot on your budget and ideals. We didn't enjoy trying to cram every day full of "must see" things, so we took our time and visited places off the beaten track a bit. Others, especially those with limited opportunities to visit Europe seem to prefer packing in as much as possible.

BTW Budapest has a "Soviet statue" park, if you are interested in that sort of thing. Quite a mission to get to by public transport though.

I enjoyed Budapest. The museum and the area around it is nice. I think there was also a cool police museum. Great city. We would go back.

A quick train ride or about 90 minutes in a car north of Budapest is the town where I live, Eger. Famous for holding off a Turkish siege in the 16 th century. Castle and two cathedrals, very medieval looking town, set in a wine valley. Nice place for a family day out. There is even an area chock full of wine cellars called the Valley of beautiful women, whether they are or its just copious amounts of local wine makes them look that way I'll leave to your judgement!

Not been to Prague.

The military museum in Budapest is in old Buda, well worth a visit, partly for the painted cavalrymen outside but also for all the intersting displays including a moderate selecion of (chained) small arms you can handle.

The old Hapsburg fort on top of Gellert Hill is also worth a visit, both for the view and for the fort itself and the German bunker which has been converted into a museum about the siege. There are various soviet artillery pieces outside.

Otherwise, the usual touristy stuff – the chain bridge, a Danube river tour, the Hapsburg Palace, Parliament building etc and I strongly recomend a spa visit to the Gellert Hotel Spa, although the naked massage (!) is a bit surprising. Buda and Pest are very different and it is worth taking in both.

If going in December (like we did), it is a tad chilly, so take your thermals and then some. Great city, really good fun.

The House of Terror is worth a visit.
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All in the Czech Republic, sorry, I have not been to Hungary.

In Tabor there is a replica of a Hussite war wagon in the square, beautiful smaller city and a nice museum as well.
Kutna Hora has a very unique ossuary, and there are silver mines worth touring.
Czesky Krumlov is a beautiful walled city and the castle there is great to visit as well.
Karlovy Vary is great for a night's stay – visit the spa and drink the therapeutic waters through little mugs with straws in the handle. Difficult to explain. :) Beautiful place though. I remember seeing pilboxes by the roadside as I drove from Prague in 1994.

I'll second the earlier recommendation for the technical museum.