I’d see which of the northern 3 had the cheapest flight to Athens. You can visit Vienna, Budapest and Prague cheaply and easily by train and the trains are very reliable. Athens is another matter — takes roughly 30 hours by train from Vienna, 40-some from Budapest, plus there are only 1 or 2 trains a day to choose from. I don’t think you’ll find bus connections much, if any, better. Pick an order that gets you to whichever has the cheapest flight to Athens last.

Thanks oldlady. My trip actually starts in London, and so far based on one very basic sequence I’ve come up with is:

London-Prague via Easijet – approx. GBP56 (incl. tax)
Prague-Vienna via coach/train – tbc
Vienna-Budapest via scenic hydrofoil on the danube or something EUR79<br /> Budapest-Athens via wizzair - approx. HUF4990 (excl. tax)<br /> Athens-London via easijet GBP 106 excl. tax

Not sure how much the airport tax would come up to from Athens to London, but am a bit worried about that as it could be really expensive.

I’ve checked ryanair and airberlin <—- both of them do not have flights from Athens to London.

Does anybody else know of any other budget airlines which flies that route?

Thanks.

Check www.whichbudget.com , they list every budget airline that I know of.

Thanks seraphim. It was also thru’ that website that I had earlier found wizzair for the budapest-athens leg.

Two more questions.

What’s the best way to get from Prague to Vienna? and which coach/train companies/routes does anyone recommend?

If I skipped Budapest altogether, what’s the best way of getting from Vienna to Athens? My searches on the internet seems to show no direct flights from Vienna to Athens. They go to other parts of Greece – so if I went to some place called Kos or something like that, how would I then later get back to Athens to fly back to London?

Hmmm… looks like more than 2 questions but appreciate the help.

Thanks!

Thanks.

Between Prague and Vienna, "just take the train" works fine — no specific "companies" involved. I know there are coaches and have heard that’s a good option, but don’t know the specifics.

You can take trains, buses and ferries to get around Greece. Overall transportation system is good, but there are lots of logistics (and thus time) involved in island hopping. The train usually isn’t the best good choice, as 1) islands 2) there are basically two different rail systems on mainland Greece — I think they even use different track gauges. I don’t know where Kos is, but it could easily require lots of time to get to Athens.

There are definitely flights between Vienna and Athens — just maybe not cheap ones. We found it cheaper to fly Vienna/Istanbul (and liked Istanbul better than Athens). Europebyair.com offers a $99 flight pass between Munich and Athens — Munich is about 4 hours from Vienna by train.

Thanks so much old lady…
The europebyair link is great – noticed that there is a flight from Kos to Athens … so worst case is I look for stuff to do in Kos and fly out of there, to Athens to and have less hassles.

Anyone out there can recommend coaches/trains from Prague-Vienna?
Still looking.

Thanks!
emcy

Just remember that the europebyair passes aren’t good on every flight. Sometimes there’s only 1 flight a week between two locations on their map that honors the flight pass.

Use http://reiseauskunft…
to find any train schedule in Europe.

emcy, can you provide more information on that hydrofoil between Vienna and Budapest you mentioned? How long is the journey? Do you have a website link I could look at? Thanks.

lyra,
you could do a quick search in google to find it, I think. I have the link on my laptop but now I’m on my desktop so will put the link up either later today or tomorrow if you can wait.

Cheers.

Ahhh … found it.

http://www.vienna-hy…

I think it offers the best price – others seem to be about EUR99 one-way but this one offers it at EUR79.

Thanks.