With a week off work that should have involved almost a dozen trains having turned into a week off work with none, I decided to make the most of my evening alone in Manchester and make the quick run up to Preston and back to tick off some stations and compare the operators running on the route, Northern and Trans Pennine Express (TPE).

After a packed stay in Bratislava, it was time to head back to Hlavna station to start the final leg of my trip. Heading to Prague for the final couple of nights of the trip, this leg was starting with a four-and-a-half-hour journey across Slovakia and Czechia onboard the Hungaria.

After less than 36 hours in the Hungarian capital and a day of aviation geekery that didn’t quite go to plan, I was back at Nyugati station ready to take the second international train of the trip, the Metropolitan from Budapest to Bratislava in 2nd class.

Having arrived into Prague on a Lufthansa Cityline flight from Munich (read about that here), I had intended to make my way into the city using the AE100 bus direct to Hlavní station, however somehow ended up getting on one of the local buses and heading into the city via Veleslavín and a local train to Masarykovo station.

Having arrived in Munich from Heathrow, I was able to make my way through the European border reasonably quickly and was soon back in departures ready for my flight to Prague. Last time I connected flight in Germany I had to head back through security before catching my second flight but this time I didn’t which seemed odd, but it might be that this was a Schengen flight and essentially classed as Domestic.

Until recently there was only one operator that connected Edinburgh and Newcastle with London Kings Cross and that was LNER. Of course, from Edinburgh you could also catch Avanti West Coast or the Caledonian Sleeper to London Euston, whilst from Newcastle you could, at a push, travel to Sunderland and catch Grand Central. If these weren’t an attractive option, you could fly from both Edinburgh or Newcastle to a ‘London’ airport, however most of these would leave you in Luton or Gatwick.