1.  I like Zagreb, but it wouldn’t be my destination of choice in Croatia.  I wouldn’t get this close without going to Dubrovnik or somewhere else on the coast or the islands.  Look for a cheap flight if the long train or bus rides are keeping you from the coast.

2.  I’d do an overnight or a couple of days in Bled instead of just a short day trip.  There’s so much to see and do in that area.  Not sure how you’re traveling, but renting a car in Ljubljana is a great way to visit Bled and some of the surrounding countryside.  Bus may be better than train for getting from Ljubljana to Bled, too.

You are going to spend three days in Bratislava and not even stop in Prague??

One and half days in Ruse???

What are you going to do there?

Anyway, it’s your choice, but if you’ve never been to Prague before, you may just consider to redesign your itinerary so that you spend less time in Bratislava and more time in Prague.

And one piece of advice for the Lvov to Chisinau train: Ukrainian trains are often sold-out many weeks before departure. Might be harsh, or even impossible to get reservations for this train, even if you try to buy them on the day of your arrival to Lvov. Plus, the reservation system of former Soviet Union railways is NOT interconnected with European reservation system, so most probably you won’t be able to buy this reservation in Poland or elsewhere in the EU (well, except the three Baltic countries). Plus, you should speak at least basic Ukrainian or Russian to even be able to pose your request to the lady at the cash desk.

Paypr makes some good points.  While I love Bratislava and could easily stay there a week, if you’re just there for the sightseeing 2 days is probably plenty.  I assume you’re skipping Prague because it’s become “pepsified” but the entire world is pretty much pepsified and it’s a beautiful place.

How good are you with the Cyrillic alphabet?  I’m not sure I’d be excited about arriving in L’viv at midnight unless I was pretty comfortable reading street signs, etc. in Ukrainian.  BTW, while the German rail system uses the transliteration of the Russian spelling and pronounciation (L’vov), I think you’ll find it more frequently referred to with the Ukrainian spelling and pronounciation (L’viv).  My experience with Ukrainian trains was great — but I spent most of my time in the other end of the country and I was working with a crew of locals who handled the details like buying train tickets — you’re unlikely to find anybody who speaks English working in the Ukrainian rail system. 

Cheers for the Croatia advice oldlady! A friend of mine verified my impression that Croatia’s coast is the place to be, so with your advice too, I’ve changed the Mostar-Zagreb leg to Mostar-Split Also, I read up a bit more on Bled and changed the itinerary to fit in an overnight stay.

As for the time in Ruse, I think I was just fearful that I’m going to be spending so much time in capital cities etc. that I won’t really get a ‘true taste’ of the country itself. Idyllic pictures of village life and untouched rural areas from Palin’s New Europe have really made me want to see a deeper view of the countries given- which I understand is going to be difficult given the intensity of the trip. Any ideas on that front? Quiet villages outside of cities to visit ? ?

I see your point about Prague VS Bratislava, but I think that is a similar scenario to the bit above i.e. not all being capital cities. That’s sort of why I chose Brno and not Prague, would your call definitely be Prague over Brno?

I’m now fearing the Ukranian train system and I’m not even there yet .. !! Thanks! Lol joking, but really what should I do about booking the ticket between Lviv and Chisinau then? My knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet is somewhat solid so I can read, just not understand! Several of my friends speak Russian, would it be worth asking them to write something down to ask the lady at the desk or is Ukranian a safer bet? Just gotta find a damn Ukranian now ..


Thanks verrrrry much, it’s much appreciated

MrLewis

Yeah, getting to and from Lviv can be a challenge.  I tried twice but couldnt get a ticket from from Krakow.  So I went to Kosice and bought a ticket to the Ukraine border, which was bad because there was nothing open and no way to exchange money, except from some guy that hangs around the station with wads of cash in his pocket to do illegal exchange.  Lviv is a nice visit, but its very time consuming and possibly frustrating to get there.  I would think the same for Chisinau, except less scenic.  Why 5 days there??

Romania has some great sights, but not in Bucharest.  You will have a lot better sights and experiences further north, Transylvania is a good start. 
Sofia isnt bad, but if you are looking for a good stop on the way there, Veliko Turnovo will not dissappoint you. 

But honestly, my biggest complaint about this itinerary is the number of hours spent on trains vs. time spend sightseeing.  Slow, smelly, crowded trains with no a/c and few people that speak english. 

Mannnnnn! Really given me doubts as to whether it’s going to be worth all the hassle just so I can visit Ukraine..!!

A super cheap flight to Krakow really decided the beginning of my itinerary there. Now I’m looking into flights to Cluj-Napoca instead, thereafter going to Chisinau and back down again?

  Right on — if you want to skip capitals, Bucharest is one you can skip, although it’s interesting to imagine what a gorgeous place it obviously once was.  We got a taste of Translyvania on a day trip from Bucharest and enjoyed it.  We also spent a couple of days in the area of the painted monastaries around Succceva which was also very nice.

  Good point — one train ride is very much like another and some portions of this trip have the same scenery as Iowa.  You can avoid the smelly, crowded cars by going 1st class (or even 2nd on the trains that run on the Russian 3 or 4 class system) — which is still dirt cheap.

  I really loved Ukraine, but this trip to L’viv might be a hassle.  I don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian at all, but did manage to work out the alphabet from my can-read-a-fraternity-sweatshirt knowledge of the Greek alphabet so I could read street names, etc.  Our Ukrainian and Russian co-workers were protective of us and made all the transportation arrangements, so I don’t really have experience other than just riding the trains.  I’d think you could work out what to write on a slip of paper to hand to the ticket agent from a Ukrainian phrase book, though — we did all our grocery shopping that way.  I’ve not been to L’viv but can highly recommend Kiev and the Crimea.

Just in case you are planning to travel anytime between Jun 20 and Sep 1, there is a direct night train from Krakow to Bucharest, leaving Krakow at 22:45 and arriving to Bucharest at 23:16 the next day. In Romania, it makes 13 stops, starting with Curtici at 12:13, so you can hop off wherever you like the countryside. If you insist on Chisinau, you may get there from Romania.

Ruse is a huge border crossing between Romania and Bulgaria, with a toll bridge and lots of trucks rolling on and off the Danube ferries on both sides. Quite an unpleasant place to taste the country. Far from idyllic.


Just for your information, Bratislava is also a capital city. You can get drunk there and visit some great parties, but the historical centre is a brief one-hour walk plus a visit to the castle and that’s it, you’ve seen it all. Brno is exactly the same regarding the extent of historical sights, but in addition is dull as sleepy compared to Bratislava. If you want to see something cute and also not a capital, on your way from Bratislava to Prague, step down from your train in Olomouc. That’s a beautiful historical town. It just has 110.000 inhabitants, but has a distinct atmosphere and a relatively large ans super beautiful historical centre.

I speak basic Russian, so I can write it down for you. But if the answer will be “all trains to Chisinau are sold out until next month, next please!” – what will you do? (assuming you’ll understand that answer []

“??????????, ???? ????? ? ???????, ????? No. 12345, ???????? ??? ???????? ?????, ?? ???? 31.07.2008” (if you don’t have Cyrillic alphabet support installed on your system, you won’t see it properly)

read as follows: Pahzhalstah, adyin billyet v Kishinyoff, po-yezd no-merr 12345, spal-niy illy coopeyniy vuggon, nuh dyen 31.07.2008

means: please, one ticket to Chisinau, train number 12345, bed or sleeper car, for the day of 31.07.2008

Thanks for your help guys, this has really been useful!

As it now stands, my parents have said that they will pay for my flight out []

From what it looks like, I might be getting a flight out to Kiev from London on July 1st and begin from there. The itinerary would follow on from there, but with the 3 or 4 days taken from Krakow, I would love to stop in Transylvania

The only problem is then transport between Chisinau and Transylvania, and then of course which town/village to visit…don’t want to get caught up in the coach-loads heading for Bran I’d imagine that a few days somewhere scenic/mountainous would be bliss!

How exactly are you planning to go? London to Kiev, Kiev to Lviv, Lviv to Krakow, Krakow to Romania, Romania to Chisinau?

BTW, how about flying to Chisinau? This may be useful: http://www.voiaj.md/…

I’m planning to do London-Kiev and then Kiev to Chisinau with the coach. The itinerary in my first post will follow after that, except for visiting Transylvania and also a different town in Czech Republic now

It should be £160 to Kiev, which seems worth it as flights to Chisinau are rather obscure with stop-overs in Riga or Budapest. Also, the flights direct to Chisinau are £60 or so more expensive.. This way I get to see Ukraine too ?

How does that sound?

people in countries with cryllic alphabets also have to learn the latin alphabet so writing something in cryllic to show them is a waste of time as they will be able to read the latin version jsut as well.

Well, sort of, but a lot of the people you will run into aren’t that comfortable with the latin characters. When we arrived in Ukraine I filled out our Ukrainian address on the immigration/customs/whatever form with latin characters. The border agent had to very carefully look up each letter and put the cyrillic characters on his paperwork. It would have been much faster/easier if I’d just used the cyrillic characters in the first place.

Am I being very naive in thinking that after having arrived on July 1st, I’ll be able to buy my train ticket to Chisinau from Kiev for the 5th ??

Hm, sort of… If you manage to buy it, consider yourself lucky. But there’s still a chance that if you order the most expensive class (first class, or Kupeyniy, as they say in ex-USSR), there’ll still be some tickets.

OK so I’m back, having considered all this massive amount of advice and refurbished my itinerary. To be more realistic, I’m structuring this itinerary without dates apart from the obvious starting one of July 1st. Each stop obviously involves day trips, some longer excursions like with overnight stays being shown.

Kiev
Chisinau-Tiraspol-Chisinau
Brasov
Bucharest
Sofia-Plovdiv-Sofia
Skopje-Ohrid-Skopje
Belgrade
Sarajevo
Mostar
Split
Ljubljana-Bled-Ljubljana
Budapest-Eger-Budapest

This is where, despite countless hours of pointless research, I get stuck. It’s coming to the end of my trip and there’s still Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland to see. But from what you’ve said, I’m guessing the route goes through cities which aren’t really that spectacular?

Bratislava
Prague
Warsaw

I suppose what’s really bugging me here, is that I want to see the EAST East, you know? Starting in Kiev and then moving westwards towards all that is west seems a pity as I’d have liked to have started further East, but don’t want to face cancellation charges/lost money etc for the flight. I looked into Warsaw-Brest, visa complications. I looked into Warsaw-Kaliningrad, visa complications again. Is it worth say, missing out Prague and going Bratislava-Warsaw-Vilnius-Riga, so to get back East and save some money??

Hope this has made a bit of sense..!!

Thanks very much

I suppose Brasov is a hub that you may have to go through on that route, but it doesnt sound like your kind of place, as most people there are on their way to see Bran. And I wasnt so impressed with Brasov itself, it doesnt have that ornate feel that a lot of other cities in Romania do. A short distance south of Brasov are the towns of Busteni and Sinaia, you could possibly get there by going through Ploiesti. Both are small towns with amazing mountain views and hiking, Sinaia is the more touristy, but Peles Palace is worth the trouble.

If you want to cross one of them out, then Warsaw. If you want to cross two of them out, then Warsaw and Bratislava.

Well, let’s get this straight.

The real EAST EAST thing:
I don’t know how you define the east east, but countries like the Czech republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Croatia are NOT that. In these countries, you have to visit rural, abandoned countryside, if you want to see the east east. Major towns and cities in these countries are neat, safe and won’t fill your desire to see the deteriorating East, if that’s your desire. Even countryside in most parts of CZ, SK, HU, SI is well-kept.

Or you may skip these countries altogether and focus on Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania etc. If you’re a risk-taker, you may even consider Kosovo

Why don’t you visit the Russian embassy and get yourself a visa? That would entitle to enter Russia (for instance from Ukraine, or by plane from wherever in the world), travel length and broadth of it, then fly a domestic Russian flight to Kaliningrad enclave, and back to EU from there (Kaliningrad is an exclave of Russia surrounded by EU). If you have nine days to spare, you might even take the world’s longest train route, the Transsiberian Railroad from Moscow to Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast of Russia (9259 km), and see all of this vast land. As far as I remember, about two years ago prices were as follows: Russian single entry visa cost about EUR 40, the 2nd class ticket for the Transsib cost about EUR 400. And Russian domestic air transport used to be very cheap, I don’t know how it is today. But their safety regulations are far from standards used in EU, US and other more civilized parts of world.

But I wouldn’t go to Belarus. I don’t want to sponsor dictator Lukashenko with my money I’d have to pay for their visa. Not that Russia is a blooming democracy, but it’s still much better than Belarus.

Plus one more thing: There is no train service between Warsaw and the Baltic states, only a bus, which takes 10 hours from Warsaw to Vilnius. There is only one local train line that crosses the border between Poland and Lithuania, with only one or two pairs of local trains crossing it daily.

And don’t think Baltic states are cheap. In fact, Riga or Vilnius are more expensive than Prague or Bratislava.

Wow.. thanks for that

I know what you mean about the Baltic states, as I went to Tallinn earlier this year and it was much more expensive than I expected (even though I’d read it was something like the most advanced Baltic state of all 3!!). There were a lot of suggestions there as to how to get futher back EAST EAST, but unfortunately, it’ll be towards the end of my trip so like beginning of September (can’t stay out there toooo long) and I assume my funds will be a bit dwindled.. having been to all those other countries.

Maybe it would make more sense, if I wanted to see more of the East than just a few places, to just spend a bit longer there! Like maybe spend some time in the North of Moldova too, or visit Maramures when in Romania so places like Viseu de Jos etc etc?? So here’s that quick list again:

Kiev
Chisinau-Tiraspol-Chisinau
Brasov
Bucharest
Sofia-Plovdiv-Sofia
Skopje-Ohrid-Skopje
Belgrade
Sarajevo
Mostar
Split
Ljubljana-Bled-Ljubljana
Budapest-Eger-Budapest

Is there anywhere in the countries of the places above then which you would recommend as a must-see/do?? I’m guessing Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia are the places where I could see more of East East. Unfortunately I cannot stay any longer than my intended visit in Kiev because of train bookings/plans to get to Moldova

With regard to your comment papyr, maybe I should not return to Budapest after Eger, but continue the railway north/northeast through Tatras villages/towns, then over to Krakow and then Krakow to Prague to end it??

Thanks very much

Hi,

well, don’t return to Budapest from Eger, but instead take a bus from Eger to Miskolc (or a train with transfer at Fuzesabony, but that’s more time consuming). That’s a starting point.

From Miskolc, you can take a short trip to Tokaj. That’s a little cute town world-famous for its Tokaj wine, which is really delicious, I consider Tokaj wine the best white wine I’ve ever tasted. Lots of cute wine cellars, nice surroundings. Then return to Miskolc. The train from Miskolc to Tokaj is a 40-minute ride and trains are very frequent.

In order to move north, you simply have to use the Miskolc-Kosice train track. About 6 trains per day in each direction, some 1.5 hours. The centre of Kosice itself is worth seeing.

From Kosice, you have two possibilities to get to Krakow:
If you are in time pressure, just take a direct train Express No. 382 (leaving Kosice at 11:55 noon) to Krakow (arrives 17:45), or leave Kosice in the morning for Presov (33 km north, also a cute town centre – and the town where I was born ) and then board the same train No. 382 to Krakow (departs from Presov at 12:23).

If you have more time to spend, visit Slovak paradise. That’s a beautiful, breath-taking scenic valley, with lots of mountains, caves, and originally preserved rural villages some 70 kms northwest from Kosice. From there, take a bus to Poprad and enjoy High Tatras, after that you can take a bus to Zakopane in Poland, and enjoy Tatras from the other side. Then you can take a train to Krakow. Try Google-image these phrases: SLOVENSKY RAJ, PRIELOM HORNADU, HNILEC, DOBSINSKA JASKYNA to get a picture of Slovak paradise. The only direct fast train (No. 810) to Slovak Paradise leaves Kosice at 15:06, but there are numerous slow trains with change in Margecany. Descend at one of the following stations: Hnilec, Mlynky, Dobsinska ladova jaskyna.

Last but not least, there is a very very cute area on the Slovak-Polish border called Pieniny, where the border is formed by the Dunajec river (northeast from Poprad, southeast from Zakopane). Also very rural and traditional, you can take a ride on a wooden raft on the rough and turbulent waters of Dunajec river, squeezing its way through huge rock formations, while at the same time admiring the well-preserved wooden houses dating several centuries back. Try Google-image these words: PIENINY, DUNAJEC, TRZY KORONY, CERVENY KLASTOR, NIEDZICA to get a picture of Pieniny area.

I guess Slovak paradise and Pieniny offer more hilarious landscapes and more preserved “old east east” than, let’s say, the town of Eger I’m sure you won’t have time to see it all, but according to my best knowledge, these are THE places I’d recommend for any visitor to the Eastern Hungary, Eastern Slovakia and adjacent Poland to see.

There are other ways to cross in to Bulgaria, especially if you are coming from Chisinau. You could do a Black Sea coastal run. Train to Constanta possibly stopping off to see the Danube Delta, then Coach from Mangalia across the border at Vama Veche and onwards into Bulgaria…

The parts of romania you are proposing to see are tourisy and equally as difficult to get to….. great thing about Romania is travel off the beaten track is as easy as travelling between the major centres/attractions (sometimes better and more comfortable)

Anyway, here’s the website you’ve been waiting for Mr Lewis, will solve a lot of your planning headaches, got times and prices. the best resource for moldovan transit

http://www.marisha.n…