Now that I’ve finally determined that I’ll be visiting Prague, Vienna and Budapest during my next “big”  trip (I will likely take a “little” one the month prior) as well as with whom I will be traveling (my son – YAY!), I’ve become incredibly antsy (yes, a surprise for those who know me) to get all of my proverbial ducks in a row so that I have a general game plan to review and tweak as travel day approaches. However, in this case, definitive planning is somewhat stalled for the time being, although my nerd research continues full bore.

Some of the structural bones to the trip have been defined to date, which is a nice feeling since those are the essential elements to trip planning, while the activities laced between are all somewhat adaptable to circumstances. Thus far, I’ve secured our flights to Prague and home from Budapest (after much ado weighing the virtues of convenient flight times, reasonable layovers and palatable fares) as well as our lodgings in each of the cities we’ll be visiting. As per usual, we’ll take advantage of my credit card points in Prague and Budapest – hey, not much beats “free” – and, Hotwire helped me find a conveniently located and reasonable, yet decent, hotel in Vienna, where the hotels included in my rewards plan would have drained my points stockpile a bit further than I would have liked.

Our airport transfer modes have also been determined (though not yet secured) with utilizing the Airport Express bus service from Vaclav Havel Airport Prague (no reservation is required) and a private pre-arranged transfer (too early to book) at the miserable hour of 2:45 am from the hotel in Budapest to catch our 5 am flight home from Ferenc Liszt International Airport. However, my logistical planning has been slightly delayed on account of train schedules being a bit in flux at the current juncture. From what I’ve read, a new main train station in Vienna (Wien Hauptbahnhof) has been under construction for some time and should be fully operational by the start of December, with schedules not being released until mid-October. Since Vienna is flanked by Prague and Budapest in our itinerary and arrival and departure via train are part of the plan, this logistical detail will have to wait until schedules are available. Once train schedules are finally released, there’s even the possibility we’ll utilize a bus service between cities instead, if those schedules turn out to be more conducive to our overall game plan.

In the meantime, there’s much to research in each of our destination cities. But my holding pattern is twofold, though, since I want to consider my son’s input in the activity planning. Given that he’s been incommunicado whilst at training at Fort Knox for three weeks now (sniff, sniff), he’s neither been able to do his own research nor even provide input to ideas I’ve garnered to date.  At least soon he’ll have access to the outside world once he arrives at Fort Polk for infantry training (big time YAY!), so he’ll be able to provide his thoughts about how we should spend our time during the trip.  Without a doubt, sampling some fine Czech pilsners will end up on his to-do list. I’m sure we can work that into the schedule for him somehow….