This September/October my wife & I are taking a trip to Central Europe – more specifically, to Vienna, Graz, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Hévíz, Budapest and Bratislava (which were all in the Austrian-Hungarian dual monarchy 100 years ago). I have a couple of questions that I’d appreciate advice on.
First, we plan to travel by train between each of the cities. Would we save any money buying train tickets in advance, or can we just roll up to the station the same morning that we plan to catch the train?
Secondly, do dopers have any suggestions on places to visit? That’s apart from the obvious ones, like the main cathedral, town hall, national parliament, palaces, etc. My big interest in taking photos, particularly of interesting buildings; one of the interests of my wife is gardens and walks in the countryside.
Any possible side trips, which might take an hour or two by bus or train, would be of interest too: I’ve already identified Trnava, which is a short train ride from Bratislava, as a possibility.
I’ve looked at various rail passes, and it seems to me that paying for individual journeys is going to be cheaper than any of the passes: all of our trips are relatively short.
And the closest that we get to Monostorpályi is Budapest: Google Maps says that it’s about a 3-hour drive, so I don’t think we’ll visit your grandparents’ neighbours.
I’ve always driven there from the coast, but there seems to be buses to take from Zagreb. There are a couple of hotels there if you don’t want to be rushed and take a longer hike around the lakes.
For shorter-distance trains, there’s not much difference, and little point to advance purchase. But for high-speed rail links, or journeys of more than 300 km, the trend now is airline-style discounting for advance purchase. Some great tips and info here.
Outside of Austria the train service suckes, once you get to Slovenia and Croatia especially. In any case, the best place to check for itiniraries is the german rail website bahn.de. But really, getting a car for at least Slovenia and Croatia might be a good move (and can be under 10 euros a day). Last time I checked the train between Budapest and Ljubljana for instance takes more than 6 hours, by car it is about 2 if I remember correctly.
The logical daytrip from Ljubljana is tot go to the lakes of Bled and Bohinj, less than an hour by car. When in croatia, you might want to try t make it to the coast, skip Istria and head more to the south (although Dubrovnik will probably be a little far). I personally didn’t find plitvice all that impressive, but many seem to like it.
Of these cities Budapest and Vienna are really what you would call “big capital cities”, the others not so much, so I wouldn’t alocate days and days to explore Ljubljana or Graz. Typically that is not a mistake American make though;).
Can’t stress enough how much I like to have a car when in Slovenia or Croatia (probably Slovakia and Hungary as well), it is almost like the US.
Thanks for all the advice so far. Plitvice Lakes and Lake Bled do look worth investigating: we can probably find out more when we get to Zagreb and Ljubljana, since we have plenty of time there: I lean to just using public transport to get to places like that,but my wife prefers an organised tour.
I’d already found the Man in Seat 61 and the Deutsche Bahn sites, and they do give a lot of helpful information.
As far as hiring a car goes, I might do that for day trips, but for longer than that I’d worry about parking in cities, taking a hired car across international borders, and dropping off a car in a different city than the one we picked it up (unless we rented a car for 4 weeks, starting and ending in Vienna).
Taking a car across international borders and dropping them off in a different place isn’t a problem at all if you work with any of the international companies. There may be a higher cost, and you should work with the rental agents to see if there are things they should give you with the car (sticker to show you can use the roads, automatic payment gizmo for tolls). I’ve had better experiences with Europcar than Avis or Hertz (more reliable about having the size I’d asked for, no attempts to charge extra for a GPS unit when the car already had one), but your mileage may vary.
Yes , I had considered Trieste, partly because it does fit in with the theme of being part of the Hapsburg Empire, and partly because we were thinking of including Venice on our trip, and Trieste is on the way between Venice and Ljubljana. It’s still a possibility as a day trip, especially if there isn’t enough to do in Ljubljana.
20 minutes north of Budapest is Szentendre, perfect for a short walking tour.
Another 20 minutes north of that are the castle ruins of Visegrad at the Danube bend
Both are well worth a visit. Inside the city, interesting buildings include the Great Market Hall, the Museum of Ethnography, the Museum of Industrial Arts, the Dohany Street Synagogue, the Whale (Bálna) shopping centre and the Eastern (Keleti) railway station, to name a few. The MuPa symphony hall is a bit of a post-modern train wreck but also “interesting,” as are the adjacent fountains and ziggurat.