City break in Europe- Sofia, Vilnius or Bucharest

I've never been to Lithuania but visited Bucharest and Sofia briefly in 2015. "Briefly" because my research indicated that neither of those cities was among the most interesting in its respective country. They're both worth a short visit, but I just don't know what to tell you about selecting between them. Sofia does have at least a couple of striking old churches, and Bucharest has some interesting early 20th century buildings, but the latter are somewhat scattered because Ceausescu entertained himself by knocking down historic buildings. There are other attractions as well, including museums.

More physically attractive that the capitals are three other cities that might be viable if you have 3 or 4 days. Unfortunately, public transportation tends to be slow in the Balkans. Figure you'll cover maybe 30 mph. I found the buses and (more limited) trains to be reliable schedule-wise, however.

From Sofia: Plovdiv (about 2 hours by bus) or Veliko Trnovo (at least 3 hours by bus). I found both of those cities, which have stunning historic districts, to be great for craft shopping.

From Bucharest: Brasov (about 2:40 by train or bus). Very handsome historic area. I was very sorry to have just visited Brasov on a day-trip. The many other parts of Romania that I saw and loved are too far from Bucharest for a quick trip.

The Romanian bus system is a bit odd. You don't usually need to pay for your ticket in advance, but you often need to make a reservation ahead of time. By telephone, not by stopping by the bus station. Although the young people you'll meet often speak good English, I was not willing to assume that of the person I would be telephoning at a bus company. Fortunately, Two good Samaritans made phone calls for me.

Another possibility if you do have at least three days would be to try to arrange a private tour with a car and driver. I'd expect the cost of that to be enormous in western Europe, but--especially if there are 3 or 4 of you--it might be relatively reasonable in the Balkans. But I have no idea what the driving conditions would be like in the winter.

This area is fantastically interesting, but it's not terribly suitable for a weekend visit.

If Varna, Bulgaria is a possible flight destination for you, consider flying there in order to see Sozopol and Nesebar. They are historic coastal towns, very touristy during beach season (and quite possibly dead in the winter), but the tiny medieval churches are something to see. Very worthwhile.

Between Bucharest and Sofia I give an edge to Sofia. I just genuinely enjoyed it and have returned a couple of times. I also enjoyed Bulgaria a little more than Romania. But my great love right now is Kiev. But I travel mostly to learn and meet people and I love underdogs.

Varna is good, Nessebar is amazing; as is Plovdiv. I know some decent guides in the region and the rates are very reasonable if you are interested.

I agree with acraven and James. Both Bulgaria and Romania are very interesting countries because they are still very traditional and different from countries to the west. Unfortunately their capitals are not the best what those countries have to offer. I hiked through Rila and PIrin mountains in Bulgaria - gorgeous, visited resorts on the Black Sea. Comparing to that Sofia was somewhat underwhelming. The same about Bucuresti. I did three weeks trek through Transylvanian Alps and visited Romanian Black Sea coast. Unfortunately never been to Lithuania. If you want city in Bulgaria, be it Plovdiv; in Romania - Brasov.

I confess I am a city guy. But last year we did drive from Sofia to Istanbul and stopped at every river and stream fly fishing. Took a week. Loved it.

I'd love to visit somewhere more interesting but there are not many direct option. It sounds like Bulgaria is a good option though. Will we be ok with the language there?

We have visited Lithuania ( on a land trip of the Baltic countries after a tour and river cruise in Russia) for two nights in 2011 and stopped in Varna, Bulgaria on a Black Sea cruise in 2014.

The Black Sea coast of Bulgaria seemed like a wonderful place for a beach vacation. The countryside was beautiful and it was very inexpensive.

Lithuania had more history and seemed more prosperous.

Both countries were inexpensive, but my sense was that Bulgaria was more inexpensive than Lithuania. Still, we would give the edge to Lithuania for our visit.

I haven't visited Bucharest and may experiences in Sofia and Vilnius were over a decade ago, so perhaps not completely current... but here goes.

Sofia was very much a city in transition when I visited. It looked like they were trying to restore some semblance of it's late 19th century heiritage, but it was very much a work in progress. Still, I enjoyed my visit. The surrounding mountains are quite scenic.

I read a description of Vilnius as "an explosion of Baroque", and that about describes it. I really liked it, and at least in 2006 when I visited, it compared very favorably to Prague. If not quite as extravagant, it wasn't jammed with souvenir shops like Prague. A very pleasent city for strolling. And it probably has more churches per square kilometer than any other capital city I've visited. My one small complaint is that Lithuania has some of the worst beer imaginable, but perhaps that has changed for the better in the ensuing decade.

I don't think the spoken language would be too much of an issue in Bulgaria or Romania. There seems to be quite a push for the young people to learn English, though that is perhaps not quite so prevalent as it is in Slovenia and Croatia. Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet, so if you haven't done some prep work the printed language will not be comprehensible to you. I don't remember how frequently signage appears in our alphabet, but I'm pretty sure destination signs for trains and buses had both alphabets, and I don't think I ever saw a restaurant menu that was all-Cyrillic.

Romanian is a romance language. I couldn't really understand the spoken language (not that I'm fluent in any of the more common romance languages), but the roots of words on signs can sometimes be figured out if you know French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. I was told that the language's structure has been altered by exposure to neighboring Slavic languages, which perhaps explains why word endings look so different from Spanish, Italian, etc.

Both Romania and Bulgaria are working hard to give tourists a good experience, so you will find English-language help from many people in the tourist industry.

I haven't been to Lithuania, but it appears that Lithuanian uses our alphabet with a bunch of extra letters. It's a Baltic language that's closer to Slavic languages that to German/English or the romance languages. I imagine English is spoken by a lot of young Lithuanians, but that's not something I've researched.

All young people in Bulgaria speak at least some English. English is a mandatory language at school. Older people speak Russian. Learn cyrillic so you can read signs. Once you are out of big cities nothing is in English. In Romania they use our alphabet. If you speak Italian you will understand (at least partly) Romanian. Young people speak English. Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union till 1991 so Russian is their second language, for young people English.

Ilja, how would Bulgarians feel about someone speaking Russian these days?

I had a bit of an issue in the Netherlands way back in 1972 when I--knowing no Dutch--asked for some cheese in a deli in my bad German. I thought I was being courteous by speaking a language I thought might be more understandable to the older proprietor, but he looked right through me. It was really blatant. I was forgetting about World War II, which he had lived through.

I can only comment on Sofia, where I visited this fall and really enjoyed. Lots of interesting museums' parks and sites in and near Sofia, including free walking tours and food tours, as well as reasonably priced day tours to nearby cities, monasteries and mountain hikes. Try to include Rila Monastery, and the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral, the latter especially during the Sunday morning services. You will have very little difficulty communicating in English. Interestingly, two of the most common and useful words in Bulgaria are "merci" and "ciao". Also "dobre" which loosely translates as "OK".

acraven, no problem to use Russian language in Bulgaria. Explanations in history: liberation from Ottoman Empire by Russians. On the other hand if you can avoid speaking Russian in Poland. Again - history. Nowadays I think it is different for most young people. Language is language and if they know it, they don't care about history.

Actually Bulgarians are very warm to Russians, politically and in tourism. It's a major destination for Russian tourists.

Thanks. I remember reading about the positive historical relationship but wanted to be sure it hadn't changed.

Its "historical" and it is very, very "current": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/14/pro-russian-candidates-win-presidential-votes-in-bulgaria-and-mo/

I was once told by a friend in Bulgaria that Bulgaria actually petitioned to become part of the USSR.

Russia and Russian tourists are a way of life in Eastern Europe. In the countries i have visited in Eastern Europe there doesn't seem to any particular feeling one way or another about individuals from Russia (other than they are a bit rude at times and throw around a lot of money). Right now a number of states are terrified of Putin (Ukraine, all the Baltic States, Montenegro, Poland to hit the high points) but that's different than discussing tourists. Other states like Bulgaria, Serbia and Moldova are moving closer to Russia looking to fill the void that the US has left. One wrong step over there and it could become a real mess, really fast. So go see it while the borders are still open......

"... they don't care about history." I think this is accurate and found this to be the case. On the the last two trips in 2015 and this past June, I had opportunities to talk with Czechs and a young woman, a Bulgarian born and grew up in Romania, on the train from Budapest to Vienna, who was fluent in at least 5 languages, Bulgarian, English, German, Hungarian, Romanian (after that I lost count). As pointed out, language is language, we spoke in German, and I asked about which language to use in light of linguistic sensitivities and names of towns in Romania, present vs historical names. Her answers were that no one really cares.

The Czech guy I got talking to him on the day trip on the train to Brno from Vienna, addressed him in German first, he replied in German. In the course of the conversation, he said he was Czech living in Czechia, told him I was from Calif, he didn't switch to English (surprisingly). I told him I was last in the Czech Republic in 2001 and was it better to use German or English now. He said it just depends on the person, some prefer English, some German. So, in Brno I used English exclusively, in Slavkov, where I really heading to, I used German and English, just depends on whom it is and what they feel comfortable with linguistically.

Planning the trip for Feb or May 2017. I see a little more prep work going into the trip but I am excited to learn a little Cyrillic. There is so much history in Europe we are just happy to be able to get a little taste of it while we are here but sometimes (like now) I wish we had more time to visit some of these other amazing places.

For Bulgaria your best help will be Kaeleku. He is married to the place.

And Fred, it probably isn't that they don't care, it's most likely that you and I don't understand, and maybe could never understand, their context when viewing the history of the region.

You didn't say where in Europe you were. I was working on a trip for later this year and out of curiosity looked at non-stop direct flights from Berlin to "Europe" and there were some pretty interesting hits; like Kutaisi, Baku, Tel Aviv. Travel light and a lot of flights are under $100. https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=TXL,SXF,QPP,BER;t=GYD;d=2017-05-16;r=2017-05-19;tt=o;s=0;mc=m Plug in your own location for ideas....

@ James...I believe we do understand the history if one knows it, has done extensive scholarly reading, eg. your recommendation of "Budapest" by J Lukacs ( which BTW anything he writes is good) and also research of their area. Some years ago a friend of mine from Ireland taught from 2007-2009 English in Budapest for Berlitz. His students were all millennials (Hungarian) who absolutely loathed Romanians, which he could not comprehend. A Hungarian woman told me (in German) while visiting here in SF. "Trianon tut noch weh." (Trianon still hurts). In both these instances with my friend (who is no history fanatic) and her, read the events of 1918-20 following the end of the war on 11 Nov 1918., not just one account but compare and contrast several in regards to depth of research, analysis, sources, etc. and one will know why such feelings, sentiments persists.

Fred is absolutely right. Hungarians used to own almost half of Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Look at Budapest. It does not look like a capital of a small country because it was once a capital of much bigger country. But a lot of countries are now less important than they used to be: Great Britain, France, Spain, Turkey (Ottoman Empire), Austria and some others. It can be called progress. I am not sure if in their eyes.

I would love to go to Israel or Turkey but I am worried it would not be safe for us with the kids. Plus if we could make it there I would definitely want to spend more than 3 days there. We've been to Morocco for a few days and plan to go back for at least a couple weeks the next time. We are just looking for a city break because we have been to several places already in Europe. I will check out the website to see what pops up for us. We are in Ireland so sometimes the direct flights can be a little limited for budget travel. I only looked on Ryan air for direct flights but I might expand that because it sounds like outside of the capital cities might be just as interesting (if not more interesting). Just keep in mind we will only have 3 nights 4 days for this trip. February isn't the best month to travel but it can be cheaper and less busy so that is why we thought to go then.

Such great information!!! Thanks everyone!

I see that Wizz Air has some cheap flights from Luton to Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I have no idea whether it would be practical for you to cobble together a connection in Luton, but if it is, this routing would open up the fascinating Maramures area. Cluj-Napoca itself has a very atmospheric historic district, but after seeing it you could take a trip north to see the beautiful wooden churches and carved gateways in Maramures. It's a very traditional area, really interesting. There are scattered B&B-style places out in the country, but I don't know how many operate in mid-winter, nor do I have any idea about the driving conditions. It would be worth exploring the possibility of hiring a car and driver if your family group is not too large. Such services are fairly inexpensive in Romania.

I took a two-day small-group tour of Maramures arranged by a hostel in Cluj-Napoca. The guide was Florin Merciu. I loved that trip.

The reason that many Hungarians dislike Romanians is that when the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up, Transylvania was about 70% Romanian and 30% Hungarian and was united with Romania with about a million and a half Hungarians in Romania. It remains a sore spot for the Hungarians.

rmb, with a short time table and with kids in tow I would go for cities; and you have a lot of choices out of Dublin.
https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=DUB;t=r-Europe-0x46ed8886cfadda85%253A0x72ef99e6b3fcf079;d=2017-05-19;r=2017-05-19;tt=o;s=0;mc=m
Remember to check different days of the week as the discount flights tend to be on certain days and not every day. Also start with one way then add the return so locations don't get eliminated solely on the return ticket.

In the winter months I would go to winter countries. The Baltics for instance where they have a culture built around freezing their parts off. Plenty to do and see in the winter, and a good place to see before the Russian invasion. The mid Central European and Eastern European states have wonderful winter events as well, but in both cases you need to stick close to the cities to capitalize on it.. Also look for special events that make the trip memorable. Things like: http://www.mohacsibusojaras.hu/. A dead of winter festival that's hard to beat (been there). There is some book of 100 festivals that you have to see before you die, or some equally silly title; this event is in the book.

Spring I would head for warmer locations where you can chaptalize on the warm water, beaches, greenery, etc.

As for kids to Turkey? I would be on the fence on that one. As for kids to Jerusalem I would do it with some care.

geovagriffith; Transylvania was about 30% Hungarian and just a hair more than 50% Romanian with the remainder being other ethnicities; mostly German. Transylvania is a large region and some of the counties were almost completely Hungarian while others nearly completely German and yet others nearly completely Romanian.

The Busójárás made the UNESCO list in 2009; and its a Croat thing, only Hungarian due to the location. For me its these sorts of things that make trips memorable. I look for special events and National Holidays and plan my trips around them when ever I can. The last was the 25th anniversary of Ukrainian independence which was unforgettable; the next New Year in Edinburg where New Year is famous.

Traveling in January? Find a country with Orthodox Christmas.

December? Hanukkah in Israel
May, May Day Celebrations anywhere in Eastern Europe
November / December, Christmas Markets
August, St Stephen's Day (Hungary), Formula I racing, Reb Bull Air Races
June, Kazanlak Rose Festival
New Year, has to be Edinburg.

You can find books full of lists for these sorts of things.

There are two stories, one to scare off Winter and one to scare off the Turks. The event takes up a large percentage of the town. Its quite a spectacle.