Are you really interested in just cities? I generally prefer the cities in Eastern Europe to those in Western Europe, but in both cases, there’s so much to see outside the cities — Austria is way more than Vienna….

I loved Ljubljana — but loved the Julian Alps (near Bled) in Slovenia even more. I’d definitely try to spend time in Slovenia. I’d also recommend a day or two in Bratislava — you could do it as a day trip from Vienna. IMO, Vienna as a day trip from Bratislava is a better option. Again, I liked the High Tatras better than the cities in Slovakia.

I liked Split and Zagreb, but others don’t care for them, so do some reading in other posts here about other options in Croatia. I also highly recommend the Baltic States, but the travel logistics don’t look like they’ll fit very well in either of your trips.

Thanks so much for your input…I was really considering shaving France and Spain off of this particular trip and doing that some other time, particularly not in the summer. If I don’t go that far west, I’ll have more time in the east and I would love to explore slovenia…I would just need to do some research. I definitely will spend a day at least in Bratislava. Do you know anything about Romania?

Ditto on Greece. It’s way more than Athens, and I highly advise Sublime visit other places as well as Athens. Especially in the summer. Sublime, please do a search, a lot has been written on the country.

Unless you’ve been to France and Spain in the summer, I’m curious why you’d like to avoid them this time of year? I love South Europe in the summer.

I’m with Luv — curious as to why you want to avoid summer in France and Spain. Avoiding crowds of tourists is a good reason, but the reason the tourists are there in the summer is because the weather’s a lot nicer.

I’ve been to Romania. I did not particularly care for Bucharest, although all of the parks and formal gardens show “what it must have once been” and there are some interesting museums and sights. I enjoyed a day trip to Brasov (Bran Castle is a little hokey, but a good visit) and could have spent more time in Transylvania. We spent a few days in and around Succeva, touring painted monasteries and generally wandering around. We had a great time, but basically “hired a driver” to get from village/city to village/city which was kind of expensive. The rail system in Romania is excellent — new equipment, decent stations, but it was a little hard to work out the oddities (like where/how to buy a ticket) in “English only.” I’m assuming that’s improved significantly since I was there in 2004.

budapest, bratislava, go down to croatia hit all the island like rab and pag and further sound if u want its beautiful and the partys are insaine

I loved Budapest.