I am in the early stages of planning a trip for Early September or October. My wife and I are trying to decide where to go. We have been in Europe twice already so have knocked out Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy. We are interested in traveling more East. Our initial thoughts are Croatia, Austria or Prague and Venice or Greece. This will be a 14 day trip. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Any of those make great trips and can provide a good dose of variety within them. You can gather more ideas in the Explore Europe section of this site. For most people, Croatia is a more rural, coastal experience, while the big cities further north are more about art and architecture, and of course ancient history is a focus in Greece. You might also want to come up to Edmonds for a Czech Rep, Poland, and Hungary slide show/class on May 16 or to browse our library.
I would divide the destinations into groups according to the logistics of travel. So: Croatia & Venice ( there is a ferry between some Croatian towns {for example Rovinj} and Venice). The other group: Austria & Czech Republic (Prague). Greece is too far from your other destinations so I let it stand alone. There are of course many other options but I am going with your initial thoughts. Now the difficult task: pick up the group. Fortunately whichever you pick you will enjoy it. To know what you would prefer consult Rick Steves guidebooks. Big advatage over other guidebooks is that Rick Steves already chose the cream of each country for you so you won't spend unnecessary time going through everything.
Austria or Prague? Yes. But Austria could be city Austria such as Salzburg and/or it could be village Austria such as small towns and big scenery in the Tyrol.
Go for convenient grouping so you don't spend a lot of time on the road.
Prague, Vienna, Budapest
Budapest, Sofia, Istanbul (if you are serious about really going EAST)
Budapest, Transylvania
Budapest, Slovakia, Krakow
(hey, I like Budapest, what can I say?)
Rome, Venice, Dubrovnik
Milan, Venice, Slovenia
Croatian coast, Mostar, Kotor
Then there are the well separated places that just happen to have inexpensive direct airfare (on full service carriers) Again since I know Budapest sort of, these will be my examples but with some research you can find equally interesting ideas from other hubs:
For about $300 RT and less than 3 hours flight time
Budapest to: Moscow, Paris, Istanbul, Israel
What I do is go to the airport websites and look at where the planes are departing to or arriving from then check the prices.
