Which Eastern European Cities Should I Visit?

2,331 Views | 29 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by drewbie08
drewbie08
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AG
The wife and I are trying to get another Labor Day trip in this year. We can stay 8 nights and take only 4 days vacation because of the holiday and weekend. We found a pretty good deal with miles to fly into Munich and fly out of Budapest (from/to Houston). So, the cities we were looking at were Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. It looks like a lot, but is only about 400 miles from Munich to Budapest.

I don't know much about Salzburg and Bratislava, but the other cities have been on my list of places to go visit. Depending on where we end up going, driving a rental car might be an option vs. taking trains. Any suggestions on cities or any other advice? Thanks!
agwrangler2001
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Prague is amazing if you can fit it in....
drewbie08
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I agree it's amazing. We've been there a few times though, so looking to explore new places!
aggiedata
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We once took an overnight train from Munich to Budapest, then worked our way back from Budapest by train and car.

Budapest is worth touring but I enjoyed Prague better. That being said, there is a lot to see. Austria is a beautiful country. Vienna was nice but the smaller towns like Salzburg were more of a draw for us.

Two places we missed in Austria that we want to see:

1. Berchtesgaden, very close to Salzburg.
2. Hallstatt, picturesque town on a lake

If you haven't seen Munich, make sure you spent some time there. We really liked Munich. Of course Oktoberfest was going on and that had something to do with it, but not all. Looks like you will be a few weeks early.
schmendeler
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5 cities in 8 nights? don't do it.
drewbie08
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I know it's a lot, and it might end up just being 4 cities, and it's actually going to be 9 nights. I get your point, but we travel like this a lot and are used to it.
Thomas Little
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Of the cities you've listed I'd rank them:

1) Munich - do the beer halls (especially the Hofbrauhaus), Marienplatz, Dachau, and definitely make time to go to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Plan on spending a full day to see Neuschwanstein. It's totally worth it. Also Schloss Nymphemburg is pretty cool. You can also go to the Englisher Garten and watch Germans surf in a river - which is pretty cool. There's just tons to see and do in Munich.

2) Salzburg - Go to the castle (Hohensalzburg), go to Berchtesgaden (that's a must do), and check out the shops and bars along the river. Do the Mozart stuff. My 3 favorite cities in Europe are Munich, Salzburg and Prague so I think Salzburg is a can't miss.

3) Budapest - check out the architecture, the parliament, Buda Castle, the bathhouses, etc. Very cool city, friendly people.

4) Vienna - it's alright. We drank heavily at the "Bermuda Triangle". That's about it.

5) Bratislava - watch your wallet. Had a buddy that paid for drinks at a nice restaurant with a debit card. A few days later he was about $2,000 lighter.

General rule - When you're in any of these cities and in doubt of what to do - go find an Irish Pub. They always have English speaking bartenders that can tell you where to go and what to do in the city.
Thomas Little
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Also, I'm with Schmendler. Don't do it. You'll spend all your time trying to find hotels, check into hotels, figure out where you are, etc. and very little time actually seeing anything. I would skip Bratislava.

When it comes to traveling like that, less is more.
drewbie08
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Thanks for the recommendations. Bratislava is the one we'd skip if we drop one. It definitely sounds like Salzburg is a place to see. I know very little about it, so thanks again for the comments!

My wife is a meticulous planner and we will have all of our hotels lined up, train schedules memorized and generally every tour and activity booked and planned each day. So we're usually able to see more in a trip than an average traveler (although we are tired after a week long trip like this).
aggiedata
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quote:
5) Bratislava - watch your wallet. Had a buddy that paid for drinks at a nice restaurant with a debit card. A few days later he was about $2,000 lighter.

Same with Budapest. Be careful, my brother got taken by an enormous bar bill for just a few drinks. They had a thug escort him to the ATM. Complete scam that you dont want to be a part of. Try to go to places that are rated highly by others.
Thomas Little
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He must have ordered the "blue drink".

I watched a taxi driver in Budapest as he kept nudging the fare box. Each time the amount would jump up - not too much, but enough to pad the bill. The third time he did it I called him on it and we started yelling at each other. The good news was he dropped us off and we paid him what we thought we owed to that point, not what the box said. He cussed a lot but he accepted it. The bad news was we had no idea where we were and it took a while to find another taxi. Ahhh Budapest.

In Munich and Salzburg you won't find much shady stuff like that. It's more likely in Vienna and it'll definitely happen in Budapest. Bratislava... all bets are off.
TXAGFAN
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Too many countries/cities. What you're trying to do would be like going to Vegas, Denver, LA, and San Francisco with all of them in a foreign language.
drewbie08
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The cities I listed are much closer than those in the US. It's a little over 400 miles Munich to Budapest, while the best route between the cities you mentioned is nearly 1,400 miles. We are efficient at traveling. My main questions was were those cities worth going to and to hear anyone's travel experience to them.
TXAGFAN
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quote:
The cities I listed are much closer than those in the US. It's a little over 400 miles Munich to Budapest, while the best route between the cities you mentioned is nearly 1,400 miles. We are efficient at traveling. My main questions was were those cities worth going to and to hear anyone's travel experience to them.
Ive been to several on your list, but can't imagine spending less than three days (assuming you travel in on a morning and out on evening) in any city. Best of luck, your trip sounds exhausting to me and most others is all.

You may be able to take advantage of some overnight trains to maximize your travel so that is the one piece of advice I would offer. Seat61 is a great website for this.
TXAGFAN
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Oh yeah...my suggestion would be to visit Munich, Krakw, and Budapest. There are night sleeper trains which can be easily utilized. These are great cities I can't imagine anyone not enjoying.
Hoyt Ag
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quote:
Oh yeah...my suggestion would be to visit Munich, Krakw, and Budapest. There are night sleeper trains which can be easily utilized. These are great cities I can't imagine anyone not enjoying.
This would be my recommendation. Much more enjoyable trip.
drewbie08
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Thanks!
FriendlyAg
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I have been to Munich, Salzburg, and Budapest. Munich deserves 3-4 days and so does Budapest, if not more. I walked all of Salzburg in a day while hungover. It's a cute town, but its small.

I stayed in Munich and when I was heading to Budapest, I traveled to Salzburg one morning, checked in, spent the whole day and evening exploring, then caught the train to Budapest the next morning. I would go back to Salzburg if someone really wanted to go, but I wouldn't personally make a plan to revisit. On the other hand, I would love to go back to both Munich and Budapest.

Even if you are use to traveling a lot and have a detailed plan, you are going to want to spend some time in a few of these places.

Following your criteria I would fly into MUC, stay for 4 nights, train to Salzburg spend 1 night, and train to BUD for 4 nights. The train from Salzburg to Budapest during the day I think took me 5 or 6 hours.

It is much harder to plan Budapest in my experience, but everyone speaks English there. Hike Gellert Hill for great views. Eat at Bors Gastrobar - Unbelievable sandwhiches and soups. You will be pissed if you don't eat here the first day because you will feel like you want to go back. So go the first day that way you can have it on the last day before you leave. It's about 1200 forint (less than 5 bucks) for a sandwhich and a soup and it's AWESOME. My mouth waters thinking about it.

I have no idea y'alls ages, but they have these bars that were built in ruined buildings in Pest. They are all unique and fun places to have a few local brews. They even have one that feels like a mexican/tex-mex restaurant. If you are history buffs, go to the House of Terror museum. It's where the Nazi and USSR HQ was during those regimes and it has a lot of history about those time periods and a lot of it happened in that building.
schmendeler
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thanks for the Bors recommendation. I've added it to my list of places to try in Budapest in a couple weeks.
TXAGFAN
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As long as we're giving recommendations, you need to go to the baths. They are a challenge IMO since many people do not speak English well there (or are not willing to do so), but very cool.
schmendeler
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those are also on the list
ChipFTAC01
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I think FriendlyAg had a great recommendation. I love Budapest, one of two European cities that I would move to in a heartbeat. I've been to Vienna and while it was interesting, it's not particularly exciting or someplace I have any desire to go back to.
texasaggie04
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A friendly tip. Refer to those places as central Europe, not eastern. My ex was from Czech Republic and she used to hate when people called CR eastern Europe.
schmendeler
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quote:
A friendly tip. Refer to those places as central Europe, not eastern. My ex was from Czech Republic and she used to hate when people called CR eastern Europe.


I've heard that as well
dcAg
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esk Krumlov, Prague, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Krakow.
schmendeler
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Hit up Bors today. It was excellent. Mushroom soup with bacon and a sandwich with sausage, bacon, onion, cheese, and garlic cream sauce. Then got a raspberry mint "lemonade" as a drink. Will definitely be going back.
FriendlyAg
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quote:
Hit up Bors today. It was excellent. Mushroom soup with bacon and a sandwich with sausage, bacon, onion, cheese, and garlic cream sauce. Then got a raspberry mint "lemonade" as a drink. Will definitely be going back.


Dude. I'm jealous . Try the green curry sandwhich. I want one now. So happy I got to share this amazing place with an internet friend
iloveAP
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quote:
A friendly tip. Refer to those places as central Europe, not eastern. My ex was from Czech Republic and she used to hate when people called CR eastern Europe.
Also, make sure you pronounce Budapest like Buda-pesht...

In March I spent 3 days in Budapest and enjoyed it...could have used one more day there. Stayed in a nice Airbnb that was in a great location and was inexpensive! (I found both cities to be really inexpensive.) From Budapest I took a super inexpensive (I think it was 7 euros?) bus to Bratislava and spent 2 days there. Had a nice time there as well but 2 days was about good...I didn't feel like I needed more time. I haven't been to Salzburg or Munich so I can't comment on those but happy trip-planning!
schmendeler
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put me in the budapest over prague camp.
kcl
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Budapest is amazing! Make sure you hit up the baths. I went to both Gellert and Szechenyi. Szechenyi was ridiculously gorgeous, and I was there in the afternoon so it was a party-atmosphere. I went to Gellert in the early morning, and it was very relaxing. I went to one ruin bar...Instant. It was crazy, not really my scene, but I'm glad I went. I can only imagine how ridiculous it would be on a weekend night.
drewbie08
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Posting a brief trip recap after getting back from our Europe trip. We ended up doing the five cities I listed in my first post. A few comments about each city:

Munich I had been there before, but the mrs. had not. We met up with a friend (also an Ag) who just moved to London, and it was his first trip to continental Europe, so that was pretty cool. Highlights in Munich included a Mike's bike tour, visiting Dachau, Olympic Park area, Englischer Gardens, Marienplatz area, St. Peter's Church, Deutsches museum, Hofbrauhaus, Augustiner beer garden. I love Bavarian cuisine (at least for a few days). Had lots of sausage, goulash, duck, currywurst, dumplings, potatoes, sauerkraut. Beer included Augustiner (my favorite), Hofbrau, Paulaner, Hacker Pschorr. The weather was amazing for sitting in the beer gardens, which was probably my favorite thing we did in the city.

Salzburg the weather was not as nice here, cold and rainy most of the day/night. Obviously it's much smaller than Munich, so we were still able to see everything we wanted to, just didn't get as great views as we were hoping. We went up to the top of Mt. Untersberg, which I'm sure had a great view of the city, but we were in the clouds/fog. I am definitely going to try to come back because there looks to be a ton of hiking on the mountain and will go south to see Berchtesgaden. The Hohensalzburg Fortress was really cool, just a bummer it was raining while we were there. The crypt under the Dom was huge and really neat too. Had mostly the same sort of food, including a Bosna from a street vendor which was amazing. Schloss Hellbrunn and the Mozart stuff was average, in my opinion.

Vienna my least favorite stop out of our cities. Vienna was fun walking around the old town area, but I just didn't like it as much as the other cities. We went to the Schonbrunn Palace (extremely crowded with Viking Cruise tourists) and zoo, which is the oldest in the world. The Naschmarkt was pretty cool and we bought a few snacks there. We tried to do one of the ring road trolly car tours, but we didn't feel like waiting after the one we tried to get on was full. So we did our own tour on the street trams and saw most of the other government buildings and old residences/palaces in the city. We went up the top of the Danube Tower, which was not worth the time and effort to get over there to do it. The food was mostly the same, but we had some schnitzel and sachertorte.

Bratislava we rode the Twin City Liner down the Danube to Bratislava. Much smaller town than Vienna, but bigger than Salzburg. Walked around the Old Town area for most of that afternoon and evening. Was nice to just hang out outside of the restaurants and people watch. Slovakian womenwow. Lookers everywhere. I was very impressedand got busted several times by my wife. Had some Klubovna beer and some delicious gnocchi. The next day we tried to go up the UFO tower on the Most SNP bridge, but it was closed for a private event. We did the castle tour before leaving to go to Budapest.

Budapest we stayed on the Pest side, which they say everyone who lives in Pest wants to move to Buda. Did another bike tour, a walking tour up in the Buda castle, went to the house of terror museum, went to the top of St. Stephen's church, had some drinks at a few ruin pubs, visited the Szechenyi thermal baths (very interesting experience), and spectated the Budapest half marathon that was going on. Was hoping to escape the summer heat a bit, but it was really hot there, nearly 90 degrees.

All in all, it was a fun trip, albeit tiring. We did a lot of research into each city's public transportation, and felt we were pretty efficient in utilizing them. The train rides to each city weren't very long, but we didn't relax much in each city. I also was very much looking forward to eating fruits and vegetables when I got back. Only had a few occurances where the language barrier was an issue. Most people spoke English well enough to communicate.

TL/DR:
Slovakian women are hot.
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