Calais - Germany - Prague

D9lek

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Hey Guys,

Im planning a 18 night trip end of august into september. Can any one give me a few pointers on getting from Calais to Prague spending 2 nights in germany (best 2 cities to stay in).. arriving in prague on the 3rd afternoon? Most scenic route/roads would be preferable..

Thanks in advance

Cheers
Dale
 
Wapping will be along shortly to give you a proper answer.

But, Calais to Prague is 676 miles, give or take.
And you're arriving in Prague mid afternoon so we'll keep it simple and allow 176 miles for the arrival in Prague day.

That leaves 500 miles in two days using scenic roads and staying in the best two German cities.

You need more time.
If that is not available then just stay somewhere en route as getting into and out of, and looking round, cities each day is unrealistic with your current time scale.
 
Not sure in the prettiest way to get there (I went fast and direct then used my days to slowly see Czech), but a nice day out from Prague is Cesky Krumlov. An impossibly quaint little town in an ox bow. Avoid weekends.
 
Calais to Aachen area , Aachen to Wurzburg area and day 3 to Prague. Pick your route to avoid autobahns and find interesting bits along the way
 
You decided not to tell us at what time you arrive in / depart from Calais. This is important to know as it will dictate how far you might go before arriving at your hotel for your first night. In turn this then starts to dictate your second night and eventually what time you might arrive in Prague.

Me? I’d maybe look at something like:

Calais to Luxembourg or somewhere like Trier (fist night) - anywhere between Diekirch and Trier, really. Diekirch is about 275 miles / Trier is about 320.

Next night in say, Bayreuth or Nuremberg or, if you cut north more, say Jena. Diekirch to Bayreuth is 317 miles. Trier to Bayreuth is about 45 miles less…. I guess you can see where this is heading.

Bayreuth to Prague is 180 miles.

How long it will take you to ride these distances on “Most scenic route/roads would be preferable” ie avoiding motorways, is up to you. Not least it will be dictated by when you start each day (see the comment about departing from Calais), what time you finish each day and how often you stop for wild flower pressing. That is sort of what Hustler is saying, too.

Now it’s your turn:

1. You know you much better than we know you.

2. As Hustler suggests, put Calais to Prague into Google maps and look at the simplest (fastest) time and distance A to B and break it up into the time / distances YOU can do in a day, dictated by the time you depart from Calais and your mid-afternoon arrival in Prague. That gives you the basics.

3. Having broken it up, put the first day into something like ViaMichelin or Kurviger. These are quite good as you can dictate if you leave out motorways / toll roads or leave them in. The Pro version of Kurviger allows you to change routing for individual segments within one overall route, which can be handy.

4. Does ViaMichelin / Kurviger throw up some possible ideas? How about if you sacrifice some part of “Most scenic route/roads would be preferable” for some (not all) motorway sections during each day?

5. Can you travel over to France the afternoon before, rather than arriving in Calais I guess, early doors (but it might be mid-morning or even lunchtime). If you can, great. It will save you an hour (time difference) and the lost crossing time on day one. That saved time can make a big difference to day one (where your hotel might be) and, affect day two and three.

The truth is, with such a long distance, there are several ways to skin a cat, as Neil W’s and now my posts show.
 
By way of a simple example of how easy it is to do.

I subscribe to the Kurviger ‘Tourer’ option, as I think it is worth it.

I asked it for Calais to Diekirch, avoiding motorways:

ba829919d3d0fe47c6c5624677afb308.png


294 miles (that’ll be accurate) but nine hours. That time may or may not be accurate, it all depends on you.

I then inserted a via point on the main ring road south of Cambrai. This gave me two segments in the one route: Cambrai to the via point and then via point to Diekirch. I then altered the preference to favour motorways for the first section.

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274 miles (20 miles shorter) but more importantly a whole two hours quicker. You don’t need to be a genius to work out what two hours of travelling time means, either for possible tiredness en-route or final arrival time or simply more time for lunch, coffee stops and flower pressing.

With a bit of fine tuning on the non-motorway bit (Kurviger sometimes takes silly detours) that is not a bad route.
 
Warming to my theme, I then asked Kurviger for Diekirch to Bayreuth:

a2a31691e91b487890eee8bb38e2ffc3.png


361 miles in 9 hours 20, taking the vaguely sensible non-main road routes.

I then asked Kurviger to favour more main roads:

337 miles in nine hours.

Maybe both too long?

OK, let’s look at Diekirch to Nuremberg:

271710654fd3e80e2a7d7e1db3ba5650.png



We now have 319 miles in eight and half hours. Maybe better as it’s less time.

I then asked for a more main road route:

1657ac94349bfeed5157271eae575094.png


305 miles in eight and half hours.

To top it off, I then asked for Bayreuth to Prague:

170 miles in four and three quarter hours, taking reasonably sensible roads, possibly perfect for a late’ish start or an earlier arrival or more flower pressing.
 
I then asked Kurviger for Neil W’s suggestion:

621cc85440e5d41efd91ff746dfcf975.png


797 miles. You have 2.5 days. That gives 318 miles a day, assuming it’s broken up evenly. But you are maybe not breaking it up evenly as:

A. We don’t know what time you hit the road in Calais.

B. Arriving mid-afternoon in Prague is several hours short if arriving at say, 19:30.

By simple comparison, my off-the-cuff suggestion, using the same routing criteria is:

a060aeb04ac98d628610467caf3c91a5.png


805 miles, so very similar.

Conclusion:

A. There is no ‘perfect’ way.

B. A lot depends on YOU.

C. Doing some more work for yourself is all but essential.

Let us know what you come up with, please.

:beerjug:
 
If just to show what (reasonably limited) choices there are, ViMichelin threw up a possibly interesting idea, which avoids motorways / tolls and runs NORTH of Neil W’s suggestion.

009be8578b5734945faf5da840392246.png


In fact, ViaMichelin shows that there are near enough only three non-motorway, no toll roads, ways to go from Calais to Prague, using reasonably sensible roads:

74ba7378d38e612cb92a9d0186570932.png



Have fun!
 
Last time I went to Prague, we did Calais to Cologne on Day 1, stopping off to visit the big ass boat lift at Strepy-Thieux. Day 2 we rode to Gotha and stayed overnight there. Day 3 rode to Hamrniky just inside the Czech Republic, but stopped in Geffell where there is a great open air Iron Curtain museum thingy. Then on to Prague where we went to the Rolling Stones concert that evening.

Not the straightest run, and 800 miles from Calais to the hotel in Prague.
 
Hey Gents,

Thank you for the suggestions they're much appriciated. I'll let you know how i get on.



Cheers
 
Lots of options, but whatever you choose, please avoid Antwerp.

I always seem to get drawn towards it, like water going down a plug hole, and the traffic on the motorways around the city is always absolutely horrendous.
 
He’d need to have Nutty’s GPS to hit Antwerp, when coming from Calais, whilst heading to Prague :D
 


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