Itinerary Help - One month in Eastern/Central Europe

On the 24th, between Wroclaw and Gdansk you can stay the night at either:

Malbork - Hometown of Marienburg castle, the headquarters of the Teutonic Knights, the largest castle in the world, one of my favorites!

or

Gniezno - the legendary birthplace of Poland, it was the first capital of Poland even before Krakow. The main sight is the Gniezno Cathedral and its twelfth-century bronze doors. A nice day trip from Gniezno is the iron age fortified settlement of Biskupin.

Both are nice stops in their own right, and Malbork is an easy day-trip from Gdansk. Maybe you can do Malbork on July 24 and visit Gniezno on August 1 for a night, on your way to Prague.

Robby: We prefer flying open ended, and they're very often less expensive than flying both ways out of a city like Prague. Prague is not the easiest or cheapest destination to get into/out of from the U.S.
Our last train trip from Prague to Vienna in April was pretty miserable, and I'd hate to think what it'd be like on a long, hot June overnight train trip from Prague much farther to Ljubijana. You can fly on Adria Airlines midday from Prague to Ljubljana for 179 Euros on 5/31 one way. Sometimes value is not in the lowest price.

Prague & Vienna are the major sights on your trip. You need more time there .

You are spending a lot of time geting to Slovenia and back, but thats a personal choice. Sure, its a night train, but a lot of us dont sleep on a night train. Then you get off at some ridicilous hour of the monring feeling all gross and yucky and the nearest shower 5 hours off. Also a personal choice is what is worth seeing and what isnt. For instance the suggestion that Prague and Vienna were the best of your trip. I'm not a huge fan of Prague or Vienna but everyone is different soit woudl be a waste to spend less than two full days in either.

Anyway, I stick to what I know something about.

6th - relax at Lake Bled, night train from Ljubljana to Budapest

7th - Budapest

8th - Budapest

9th - Budapest

10th - travel to and sleep in Eger

July 11th - train to and sleep in Vienna

Since you have a month, Budapest is very much a four full day destination. While I love the place, I also realize that there is a whole world to see so I wouldnt recommend more than 5 full days on the first trip. Eger is good too, but do you realize that you will be going from Budapest to Eger, then back to Budapest to get to Vienna. If you are after wine I can send you to a place closer to Budapest or a good wine bar, A trip that would be in line with your travels woudl be to spend a night in Gyor on the way to Vienna. While there see the winery and archabbey at Pannonhalma.

As for cheap flights. It all depends on where you are leaving from. My cheapest flights are to Kyiv or Odesa, Lviv or Kharkiv on Turkish Air. From there I can reach a lot on discount airlines. Besides, Ukraine is stunning and there is train service from Lviv to Poland.

Just to yank your chain a little. You said Eastern/Central Europe. I am supposing to try and be politicaly correct. Those that would argue with you about the term Eastern would also say none of your trip is in Eastern Europe; so Central Europe would be correct. Others might argue that Austria is in Western Europe. So now mabye you should say Central/Western Europe. Personally being an old Cold Warrior; its all Eastern Europe for me (except Austria of course). :-)

Oh and make sure you visit Sevnica.

I'm so glad you are doing this. You are likely correct that you won't be able to take a trip this long again until you retire. We did a month in Europe when my husband finished grad school. We are now supposedly on the other end of our worklives, and although I recently retired, my husband did not, and finds it difficult to even take a two week trip (although he reads and responds to email every day of the trip, a process which often takes a couple of hours).

We're making our first trip to Vienna in Sept and have 3 nights and I don't think that's enough. If you add an extra night in Vienna, maybe you could go to Melk Abbey, which sounds beautiful but we won't have time to see it on our trip.

Lake Bled is visually stunning but quite small. I don't remember exactly, but I'm nearly certain I walked all the way round it in much less than half a day. By comparison you are very short on time in Ljubljana. As close as those places are, I wouldn't change hotels to stay in both.

"We prefer flying open ended, and they're very often less expensive than flying both ways out of a city like Prague. Prague is not the easiest or cheapest destination to get into/out of from the U.S."

David- I've heard several other people (including Rick) say the same thing. It must depend greatly on where you're flying out of - for me one way tickets to Gdansk were ~$1200 and a one way to Ljubljana was over $1600. Prague was round trip for $1050 each.

"Lake Bled is visually stunning but quite small. I don't remember exactly, but I'm nearly certain I walked all the way round it in much less than half a day. By comparison you are very short on time in Ljubljana. As close as those places are, I wouldn't change hotels to stay in both."

acraven - good tip. It might be worth finding a hotel somewhere in between near a bus line and maybe close enough to still Uber/taxi to the city center of Ljubljana. We just want to spend a couple slow days doing something in nature to give ourselves a break from old capital cities.

I've heard several other people (including Rick) say the same thing. It must depend greatly on where you're flying out of - for me one way tickets to Gdansk were ~$1200 and a one way to Ljubljana was over $1600. Prague was round trip for $1050 each

But you don't want "one way" tickets. You want to fly outbound to one city, and return home from a different one...which is sometimes called "open-jaws" (or "multi-city", depending on what search engine you are using). What it's called (and how things are priced) varies from one system to another, but don't search for two "one way's". You want to fly A to B for the outbound, and return from C back to A.

It's also worth noting that you will typically find lower fares going in or out of a large, popular city (eg Prague) than a small city that's not a major international tourist draw (eg Gdansk), so be sure you are comparing reasonable routings.

Actually there are some strange cheap markets out there; like Kyiv. It's the cheapest Europe RT from my town. For another $70 I can be most major capitals. But Kyiv is amazing on it's own.

The assumption that you won't be able to travel for a long period of time again because of your wife finishing medical school is incorrect. There is always a way to continue to travel. I graduated from medical school in 2004. And on the contrary, I have been travelling more and more. Travel is my passion.

Commenting on your itinerary, I found it very interesting; I would urge you to consider open jaw tickets and spending more time in Prague.

I experimented with multi-city flight options flying in and out of Vienna/Warsaw/Prague. Best I could find was into Prague and out of Warsaw for a little over $1300 each. The flights are much longer (different layover locations) and I have a hard time justifying $500 extra for the two tickets. I'll keep looking though.

Anyone have any other itinerary thoughts?
Think Eger can be done as a day trip?

RobbyRob, with flights it helps to know where you are leavng from.

Eger as a day trip? Yes, it is possible. Six hour on a train through....