We are travelling from Cracow to Budapest in May, 2011. We were planning to take the night train to save time, but now find we have enough time to use bus or train service by day if the view from the bus/train is worthwhile.
Is the scenery worthwhile? Which would be better - bus or train?
Greg
View from the train is unspectacular. You'll see some hills as you cross the Sudety around Zebrzydowice. And you'll cross the Danube at Esztergom. That's it.
There are prettier routes by bus, for example if you head south to Zakopane and cross the Tatry, form Poprad head East to Kosice via Levoca and then south to Budapest, but that takes much longer.
As Andrew says, the route taken by the bus is much nicer than the one of the train for this particular trip. Whereas the train goes around the mountains, the bus takes the shortest route crossing mountainous Slovakia - quite spectacular, even though you could make it even nicer by following #1's suggestion and breaking it down into stages.
Hi Greg, I took the Orangeways bus from Krakow to Budapest this spring. I made the reservation a month in advance and it was very cheap. The bus was less than half full so there was plenty of room to move around. We stopped once to buy snacks (there is a bathroom on board).
The scenery was great. I would not hesitate to take the bus again. We left Krakow at 2pm and got to Budapest at 9:30pm (an hour earlier than the official arrival time). I think that's actually faster than the train but don't know that for sure.
Good luck.