I have been wrestling with this decision for a few days now and figured maybe someone reading this has a logical point to make in one direction or the other.
My wife and I are headed to Prague in March but our final destination is Berlin. Basically, the cheap fares were to places outside of Germany, so I looked for one that had a decent train schedule to where we were headed. Anyway, the train to Berlin takes about four hours. It’s relatively inexpensive and we would leave the Prague airport, after a 2pm arrival, and head straight for the central train station, eventually arriving in Berlin around 8pm.
Unbeknownst to me, Air Berlin started a regional service with Etihad between Prague and Berlin. The price is nearly the same as the train if I buy a roundtrip, which is fine, because we have to come back to Prague for the return home, and it’s a 1 hour flight. The only catch is, the connection means four hours of sitting in the Prague airport. Seth brought up a good point that he would rather keep moving than potentially fall asleep and I am taking that into consideration.
But what would you do? The arrival time into Berlin is about the same with both options. I guess one upside of going by train is being able to take public transit on arrival to the hotel instead of a cab from the airport.
I’d vote for the train as it’s more relaxed. I would also be up for driving it if I could get a rental car cheap enough. You might see some new sites that way. I like adventure over a train station or airport. Parking cost could be a factor at the hotels with a rental car but you’d save some on the public transit.
Thank you for the thoughts Dan! I doubt we’ll drive as rental cars coming from the Czech Republic into Germany can get quite expensive (especially on a one-way basis). The train is definitely the front runner when it comes to options, so we’ll see what happens!