Assume a person wants to travel to Eastern Europe from England. What are some good cities and countries to visit. Is Bucharest any good? What about Romania?
A very popular place to visit at the moment is Krakow in Poland. It was undamaged in WW2 , it has a very lively student population, lots of cafés and restaurants and great architecture. Several low-cost airline fly to there from the UK and accommodation is cheap and of high standard. My wife and I off to there in August.
Second vote for Cracow. Prague is undeniably beautiful, but has become just a little bit too popular. Llubljana, Tallin and Riga are other cities I’ve heard good things about.
Well, I went to Croatia and Bosnia last year and I highly recommend it, especially Sarajevo and the coast. And Prague, as others have said, is beautiful if crowded. Ditto for Cesky Krumlov, an absolutely stunning town about a two-hour bus ride from Prague.
Prague is pretty trendy these days. I was just there on business and really enjoyed it though. It’s a beautiful city.
Haj
Krakow also attracts vistors wishing to see Aushwitz, and no doubt will now become popular with Pilgrims on the JPII trail.
I’d recommend Budapest. Great city, fabulous Sysnagogue and Cathedral, great thermal mineral baths (go to the Szechenyi baths for an authentic hungarian experience).
I’ve never been to Europe, but if you are interested in Romania you might like to visit some of the extant historical sites associated with the real Dracula, Prince Vlad III. From McNally and Florescu’s *In Search of Dracula * (1994):
Snagov Monastery is located on an island in a lake 15 minutes north of Bucharest. This is Dracula’s reputed burial site.
Castle Dracula is located about 20 kilometers north of Curtea de Arges. This is where Dracula was crowned, and where his first wife committed suicide by throwing herself from the tower into the river below.
Brasov, Transylvania. At the ruins of St. Bartholomew’s church is where Dracula impaled several hundred victims and then dined amidst them.
Sibiu, Transylvania. The Evangelical Church is where Dracula’s son, Mihnea the Bad, is interred. He was also murdered inside this church.
Bucharest is the Captial of Romania, FYI. From what I understand, Romania is the most crime-ridden, most torn-apart-by-tyranny, most generally trodden-upon of the Eastern European nations. Around 1996 I spent a summer in Bulgaria, and me and some friend swanted to visit Budapest. We were strongly advised to take the train through Serbia (a war zone at the time) rather than through Romania because “its much safer.” That was quite a few years ago though.
I’ve been to Bulgaria (lived in Blagoevgrad for 2 months), Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Bratislava (capitol of Slovakia) and some towns up the Danube from Budapest. These places are fun if you don’t mind being disoriented at times because mutual communication can be hard to achieve with the older generation (younger people generally speak some English). The exchange rates are favorable and the locals generally very welcoming to tourism. Its good to know a few words of German since that is the language of tourism in some areas (and I mean a few… guten tag and bitte will take you a long way). I’ve had a good time wherever I went.
The Adriatic Coast is supposed to be a quite nice place to have a vacation on the cheap (its on the opposite side of the Adriatic sea from Italy). I’ve never been myself.
I had a great time in Warsaw two summers ago. Cheap, friendly, good beer.
Budapest was stunningly beautiful in 1990 when I spent a long weekend there. Prague less friendly but also of course very beautiful. Didn’t like Belgrade.
I was traveling around Europe in 2001 and hit quite a few cities in Eastern Europe. I know Berlin is probably considered Central Europe, but it’s history and the clash between communist and capitalist ideology makes for a pretty interesting town, especially for an American.
Prague is a truly stunning city, even while strolling up a random street, you are bound to see something cool. I found it to be a bit sinister though, and there seemed to be an inordinate amount of unfriendly Russian gangster types. I found it to be a bit sketchy wandering around parts of town late at night. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s well worth visiting.
Bratislava in Slovakia is not so interesting, but Slovakia is (at least in 2001) really really cheap. I stayed in some college dorm there for about $2 but it was the sleaziest place I stayed in Eastern Europe. Not a whole lot of English speakers either (not necessarily a bad thing). I passed out in a cab after having had a shot of absinthe (after a $2 liter of wine), but was still delivered safe and sound to my dive accommodation.
For me, Budapest was a bit disappointing as it had been mostly destroyed by a flood in the 1870’s and compared to Prague, was not nearly as beautiful. I think If I had gone in reverse order, I would have been much more impressed. Still pretty cool, plus I learned that Anonymous was a Hungarian monk that recorded medieval Hungarian history.
Krakow, as previously noted is really beautiful, and has a bitchin’ castle. It’s got a killer central square great for beer drinking and people watching. There’s a cool salt mine that is a great day trip where the miners sculpted a cathedral complete with salt chandeliers. Warsaw is not as nice, most of the old city is rebuilt after World II, plus it’s a lot bigger city accompanied by the usual drabness of communist era urban sprawl.
Vilnius in Lithuania is awesome. Really good food, cool old town. Any town with a stature of Frank Zappa is alright in my book.
Riga in Latvia is also nice, but I think it was beat up pretty badly in the war, but nicely restored. I could not find a single person in town who spoke English. I do believe that Riga has the most beautiful women on the planet. That main drag through the old town in a fantastic place for beer drinking and people watching. I could hang out there all day long.
Tallin in Estonia is an extremely pretty medieval town with tons of funky towers and walls. I know I’ll take some flack for this, but it was overrun with Finnish people who don’t look kindly on Americans. And this was before the war in Iraq. They come to Tallin to get soused as alcohol is very expensive in Finland and very cheap in Estonia. On the ferry to Helsinki everybody was carrying 4 cases of beer. Definitely consider staying at the Old Town Hostel as there is a strip bar UPSTAIRS!
Another vote for Tallinn, though I haven’t been there since 1989. Gorgeous old architecture, quaint Old City, friendly people (unless you try speaking Russian to them, but maybe things are less tense now). A friend who lived on an island off the Dalmatian coast of Croatia raves about the place, and I’ve seen the photos - he ain’t lying.
Damn, you just bit my travel bug. Now I’m tempted to go somewhere off the beaten path instead of my typical “let’s crash on our friend’s couches!” tour.
I stongly recommend Krakow for all the reasons mentioned above. I lived there for about 6 months in 2002 (saw JPII on his last visit there, as a matter of fact).
I was in Prague and Cesky Krulov in 1995 and enjoyed both of them greatly. I’ve heard that Prague is much more crowded with tourists than it was then, and that it’s even become a popular weekend jaunt for Brits. I bet it’s still a great place to visit. We’ve got a guy on the board who’s living there now, but I don’t recall his name. Cesky Krulov is small but very picturesque. The Vltava makes a couple of horseshoe bend there, with a fascinating castle up on the cliff. When I was there they were restoring the renaissance era tower.
Parenthetically, a couple of my Polish friend insist that Poland is in *Central *rather than Eastern Europe.