Prague

Prague. Prague. It helps to say the name at least twice as a countermeasure to the ridiculous ease of modern travel — especially when visiting cities of one syllable. Another countermeasure is to arrive by train, where the sweep of the landscape gives a better sense of Prague as the grand Bohemian capital than as a retreat for Hapsburg aristocrats and easyJet stag parties.

There are direct trains from Munich and Budapest, and of course Vienna and Bratislava, to Prague’s Hlavní nádraží station, originally christened Wilsonovo nádraží after the...