84 Days in Europe

[bjones9942]

I jumped on a summer flight from LAX to Copenhagen this summer, round trip for just over $460. I'd been planning on going to Prague (made it to Paris when Covid hit and I had to turn around) and Istanbul, so I decided now or never.

So I went a little overboard and booked the trip for 84 days. I'll spend a month in Istanbul, and likely a week in Prague. I may do a bit of time in Budapest too - I have some forints from my last trip that I need to get rid of

So, my question is - if you had that much time to spend in Europe, where would you stay for an extended period (two weeks or more), and why. I'm not staying in timeshares as the offerings are generally in out of the way places - although I do have some RCI points I need to use. I've already been to Paris and Amsterdam - don't need to go back. I like Munich, but don't know about more than a few days. Looking more for budget friendly cities with a lot of sites to see (like Istanbul).

Thanks!

 

[beejaybeeohio]

How about the Dordogne region of France? Prehistoric caves, plenty of chateaux, vignobles, canoeing....

 

[nerodog]

I jumped on a summer flight from LAX to Copenhagen this summer, round trip for just over $460. I'd been planning on going to Prague (made it to Paris when Covid hit and I had to turn around) and Istanbul, so I decided now or never.

So I went a little overboard and booked the trip for 84 days. I'll spend a month in Istanbul, and likely a week in Prague. I may do a bit of time in Budapest too - I have some forints from my last trip that I need to get rid of

So, my question is - if you had that much time to spend in Europe, where would you stay for an extended period (two weeks or more), and why. I'm not staying in timeshares as the offerings are generally in out of the way places - although I do have some RCI points I need to use. I've already been to Paris and Amsterdam - don't need to go back. I like Munich, but don't know about more than a few days. Looking more for budget friendly cities with a lot of sites to see (like Istanbul).

Thanks!

Try Portugal! Go to Madeira for a week and then spend another week exploring this small but diverse country!

 

[letsgobobby]

what are the details of this sub $500 return trip to CPH?

it's cheaper to stay outside of big western cities, but that's also where there's a lot to see. what are your interests?

 

[Jodyv]

Wow! How exciting!! Italy has lots of interesting sites and a good train system (but there can be train strikes), Staying outside any big city would be pretty inexpensive (is that what you are going for?) I stayed in Bergamo (outside Milan), but I hear Siena (outside Florence is really nice.) There's always Rome or Naples. Bacharach, by Koblenz, Germany is really gorgeous, with a day river cruise past lots and lots of castles. We also stayed in Fussen, Germany, but only for a couple days. We went to Neuschwanstein castle (Sleeping Beauty's Castle was supposedly modeled after this castle) and took some of the most gorgeous pictures ever. (I'm trying to curb my envy! Lots of my travel plans got cancelled because of covid and caretaking.) I also heard Portugal is nice. There are lots of YouTube videos about any place you think sounds interesting. Check them out!

 

[Carolinian]

Definitely take in Venice and Rome. Sicily has a lot to see as well, and a decent train system to move around on the island. Vienna and Salzburg are well worth seeing, also Innsbruck. It is an easy train ride between Budapest and Vienna and then on to Salzburg. Krakow and Warsaw in Poland are great, although Old Town in Warsaw is almost all an authentic looking fake and the real Old Town was essentially destroyed in WWII. Krakow, however saw little damage in WWII. Tallinn, Estonia, Riga, Latvia, and Vilnius, Lithuania are also well worth seeing. While in Prague, you should take a day to go see Cesky Krumlov. In Croatia, I would spend some time in Dubrovnik and Split, and take side trips to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Cetinje in Montenegro. In Romania, the old Saxon cities of Sighishoara, Brasov, and Sibiu are well worth seeing. At one time, I would have suggested Lviv and Odesa in Ukraine and St. Petersburg in Russia, but given the situation today, those would definitely be no-go.

As to getting around, I would mix three modes of travel, rental cars, train, and most cost carrier airlines like EasyJet, WizzAir, and RyanAir. There is also one that operates out of Istanbul but I forget its name. With LCC's the cost will be a lot less if you book early, and it helps to travel lite.

When my wife and I spent a week in Istanbul, we stayed in an old mansion on Buyukada in the Princes Islands in the Sea of Marmara, which belonged to an old Ottoman aristocratic family that was using it as a hotel. They do not allow motorized vehicles on the Princes Islands, and you get around by very reasonably priced horse drawn carriages. There are frequent and quick ferries from Buyukada to the Golden Horn in Istanbul. The Princes Islands were the first place the Ottoman Empire allowed foreigners to own land, so in the mid 1800s through World War I, lots of mansions were built there by foreign merchants and Ottoman aristocrats, and very little has changed since.

For guidebooks, I like the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet series, as well as the In Your Pocket series for cities.

 

[bjones9942]

I did a trip in 2019 to Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, and Budapest. Several days in each except only one in Munich (during Octoberfest - I know, I should have stayed longer!). I enjoyed everything with the exception of the Louvre. I usually like museums, but it was almost exclusively Christian artifacts, replicas, and items taken from graveyards. Definitely not my cup of tea. I did see the Mona Lisa, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace - which were the impetus for the visit. It'd be true also, that churches and cathedrals aren't of interest to me either. I stayed in hostels and traveled by train so I'm good with doing that again. For my month+ stays AirBnB always has a room in a shared apartment somewhere, which is great for making new friends and learning about the day to day culture.

So, my major interests are: Food; fun architecture; museums (that aren't on a religious theme); food; geological features; interesting day trips; and food. I like to visit the main cities to get that 'tourist' vibe out of the way, but staying in a smaller city/town would be of interest if there were any of the above to draw me there. During my previous trip, I liked the food in Munich, but Budapest wins hands down for everything else (and food wasn't all that far behind Munich). Plus, Budapest was very affordable, and I still have about $400 usd in Forints in my travel wallet. My goal is to keep under $1,000 a month other than lodging. I realize I won't be able to do it some places, but hope to make up for it in others. I'll get museum passes where offered, and avail myself of any 'senior' discounts too

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll get busy with researching and then try to tie my favorites together in a tidy travel plan!

letsgobobby - there's a website that publishes discount and mistake fares called Secret Flying. I used them for the 2019 trip ($285 that time) and a 10 day trip to Beijing ($305). Those were the pre-pandemic prices and not summer, which is why this upcoming trip is more.

 

[Laurie]

Portugal has been recommended and I second (or third) that, especially for a longer trip with a budget. Your cash will go farther there than just about any western European country, especially in the smaller cities and towns. We spent a month there in 2016, after having visited most other western European countries, and wondered why we'd waited so long. Tho prices have no doubt risen by now, especially Lisbon, still. So much to see and do in a relatively compact but varied area. I loved Porto and the Douro Valley, and the Algarve for just physical gorgeousness. Food was very good, and the pastries!

Everything recommended here is worthwhile of course --- loved Prague too.

PS - Once we flew direct from Florence to Copenhagen on a cheap low-cost airline, and I've created a few itineraries (some with piggy-backed timeshare trades) that sounded unlikely but guided by cheapness of flights, and they all worked out. Maybe you're already looking into that as well.

 

[Carolinian]

I use the boards at FlyerTalk to look for those cheap and mistake fares. Airlines aren't always honoring those mistake fares these days.

If you travel by train, the websites of both the German and Austrian railroads are good resources and you can look up trains all over Europe on both. The best resources used to be Cook's European Timetable, which was published monthly. I used to pick one up about once a year at the bookstore in Victoria Station in London. Unfortunately, with the bankruptcy of Cook's travel organization, I don't think anyone else has picked up publishing it. I still use an old Cook's for its great railmaps and a general concept of train schedules, then check the current schedules on the Deutsche Bahn site.

 

[regatta333]

Flix buses are also a very good way to get around at a reasonable cost.

 

[Carolinian]

Your experience of money going farther in Hungary is generally true of most of eastern Europe, but is less so as countries adopt the euro, as all of the Baltics now have. If you are starting in Istanbul, and are definitely doing Budapest and Prague, I would look at what you can do in between. Athens is great for its ancient ruins, and its food, but a day or so is enough there. Greece adjoins Turkey, but I would check what transportation links are running due to the intense squabbling going on presently betwee the two governments. If it is running, there is a train from Istanbul to Thessalonika in Greece, from where you can transfer to Athens or to the line north to Bucharest or to the line that runs up to Belgrade. There used to be a through car to Athens on that train, but the last time I took it, there was not.

Given the places you are already planning to go, I would try to take in the Balkans; Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Romania after Istanbul before hitting Budapest. In Romania, my choice would be the three major Saxon cities, Brasov. Sighishoara, and Sibiu, which have good rail connections between them are two of them are on the main line from Bucharest to Budapest.

I have often had better luck with booking.com for b&b's eastern Europe than with Airb&b. You might check them, too, as some places that use one do not use the other.

Unfortunately, Croatia has just adopted the euro and that always leads to higher prices. I was in Germany the day the euro first came in and the prices of just about everything went up from the last day of the Deutschmark to the first day of the euro. It was like everyone did the conversion and then rounded up, often by ten or twenty percent or more. The law in all countries that switch say they cannot do that but in reality it is very, very common. There was actually a court case in Rome where a journalist sued a coffee shop because they jacked up the price of a coffee by around a third on the day the currency changed. He won his case and took a parade of people down to buy coffees at the old price, just converted to euros, but the coffee shop only honored that price for him and told the others they had to take him to court themselves to get that price.

Yes, the reports are that Croatia, too, is being hit with huge price hikes in the change to the euro.

Prices soaring after Croatia switches currency to euro | Visegrád Post

Croatia – On 1 January 2023, Croatia abandoned its national currency, the kuna, to become the eurozone’s 20th member state – at the same time as it joined the Schengen borderless travel area. The kuna will now remain in use, in parallel with the euro, only until 15 January. The conversion rate...

visegradpost.com

 

[bjones9942]

Thanks again everyone! My research list is growing!

FYI - I used the 'Man in Seat 61' website (https://www.seat61.com/european-train-travel.htm) to research my first trip, then used their links to the train websites to book the tickets. That site is a life saver. It made planning the trip almost easy! Almost

 

[bjones9942]

Thanks again to all who gave me ideas ... I decided to make this a nice and comfortable trip with just a few stops, so Copenhagen for a few days since that's where I arrive. Then a flight to Istanbul where I'm staying for two months. I decided I wanted an immersion of life in Istanbul! A week in Athens, then 9 days in Budapest to spend the forints I have from last time, and 4 days in Prague before heading back to Copenhagen. Flights seem to be reasonably priced, so I'll probably do that instead of trains. Of course, if I find I don't like one of the stops I could just leave a day early and spend the time taking a train ride.

 

[bobpark56]

We especially loved Dürnstein, Austria and Český Krumlov, Czech Republic. Florence, Italy was also nice, as was Brugge, Belgium.