For Paris-Madrid either take the overnight Elipsos train (book in pretty far in advance using the TGV website or at a train station in Paris to take advantage of special prices) or fly any number of airlines from the various airports in Paris. Take the train from Madrid to Barcelona; the new high-speed AVE line makes this journey much faster. Fly Barcelona to Prague, and Prague to Paris.

There are many options for Paris-Madrid flights:
http://www.whichbudg…

Click for Sky seems cheapest for Barcelona-Prague (but double check):
http://www.click4sky…

Sky Europe looks cheapest for Prague-Paris:
http://www.skyeurope…

Check http://www.whichbudg… to find listings of most low fare carriers, and double check to make sure you’ve got the cheapest fare using http://www.mobissimo… and/or http://www.skyscanne…

If it wasn’t in April, I’d recommend you to take some of the many summer charter flights between Spain and Prague. But I agree with Augustin25 – between Madrid (or BCN) and Prague, don’t even think of other means of transport than an airplane. By car it takes almost 24 hours.

I’m in the minority in that I don’t like using the “low cost airlines.” This is all do-able via rail; I’ve taken a night train from Paris to Barcelona (only have to change right at the border of Spain, ie. about an hour before Barcelona)… Barcelona to Madrid is no biggie… and I know for a fact that there is a night train from Barcelona to Zürich (which I think is nice, I don’t care what anyone else says ) and there is another night train on to Prague from there. The only hangup I could see is from Prague back to Paris; If I was gonna use a plane at all, it’d probably be for this route since if memory serves, there’s no direct train, and you’d have to either go up to Berlin and take a night train to Paris from there, or go in a more straight shot and change at like 430am somewhere.

But hey, if you like planes, you can do that too

Feicht, you’re a glutton for punishment I don’t mind an overnight train here and there, but no way I’d take two overnight trains just to get from one city on my itinerary to another.

I did it to get from Barcelona to Berlin via Zürich

But if I did it again, I’d probably just stay in Zürich for a night.

I agree, but I don’t find 2 long and 3 “short” flights in a couple of any more appealing. The rush to get to the airport, the endless check-in lines (the worst US nightmare is comparable to the norm in a European airport in my experience), etc. are as punishing.

Flying can definitely be a pain, but I’ve spent much less time waiting to check in and go through security at European airports over the last couple of years than I have in American airports. In the last year I’ve checked in at CDG, BCN and FRA and haven’t spent more than 10 minutes in any line. Upon landing at FRA, BCN and MAD I’ve been able to retrieve my bags and get to where I was staying in an hour or less.

That said, I’d still be tempted to do the overnight train from Paris to Spain, and would definitely take the train from Madrid-Barcelona.

I tried to play a little with momondo.com (recommended at another forum) and entered, just for fun, the date of April 15, 2009 (I don’t know when your vacation is), one-way ticket from BCN to PRG.

I’ve found out that a couple of agencies sell tickets for a direct flight of Iberia company (Barcelona dep. 12.10, Praha arr. 14.25) for less than 100 euros. I’m pretty sure that’s much cheaper than any train offer. And 2 1/4 hours in comparison to 2 nights, that’s all that would make me decide.

The exact opposite of my experience. I’ve never waited more than 20 minutes in a check-in line or 25 minutes in a security line in the US. It’s seldom less than 40 minutes to check-in in Europe. I’ve been in line over 2 hours Frankfurt, 1 1/2 hours in Vienna (plus another 1/2 hour in security line) and nearly 1 1/2 hours in Rome. Frankfurt and Rome were both in September, so not really the height of the busy season. Things may be more comparable now that self-check and internet check-in have finally made it to Europe. There were huge lines in Riga and Helsinki last summer, but very little wait to check baggage if you used internet or the kiosk to print your boarding passes — hard to figure why more people don’t use the kiosks.