Multi Country Trip

I don't think you can go wrong with either option. Hungary and the Czech Republic are fantastic. So are Slovenia and Austria.

What you ultimately decide depends a lot on your interests. The main draw of the first option is the cities of Budapest and Prague, two amazing cities. That option is going to be somewhat less scenic (though there are some gorgeous areas in those countries). With the second option you'll spend some time in the mountains, and scenery is probably the primary draw, though there are also some fabulous cities: Ljubljana, Salzburg, and Vienna are all great.

I loved Bosnia, and I think a week there is a great idea. I haven't been to Serbia, so I can't comment on whether skipping it is a mistake, except to say that on this trip you're also skipping all the rest of the countries of Europe, and if that's not a mistake, then neither is skipping Serbia. I think it's much more worthwhile to focus and where you are going, not where you aren't.

Sofia was far from my favorite place in Bulgaria. I wouldn't tell you not to go to that city, but I think skipping historic Plovdiv and Veliko Trnovo is a very big mistake given that you have time. And then there's the Rila Monastery (which I didn't have time for myself).

I'd urge you to pick up guidebooks (old ones will do for this purpose) to the countries you've mentioned and skim through them. Trying to figure out how long to spend in relatively obscure countries without doing that will almost certainly mean re-doing the plans later. I think you'll find there is much more to see than you are aware of. In Croatia you are allowing only 3 days for seeing the places not accessible during your one-week stay at a resort. The options there are many: Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Istria (you could easily spend 4 or more nights there), the islands, historic coastal towns like Zadar and Dubrovnik. Croatia has little rail service; the buses are fine but not particularly fast.

So my suggestion is that you consider dropping both of your "continuing on" options and spending all your time in Turkey, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Croatia.

In Serbia, Beograd and Novi Sad are both interesting. The Bar (Montenegro) to Beograd railroad is said to be extremely scenic, but I haven't taken it. Montenegro has a lot of interesting towns and some gorgeous scenery. I took two day-long bus trips to get from Sofia to Podgorica (the dull capital of Montenegro--I'm not recommending it), and there was some fabulous scenery between Nis (southern Serbia) and Podgordica.

We did 5 days in Istanbul prior to a cruise and it was great. Get a hotel close to the Hippodrome.

We have been to Ephesus, Turkey and it is worth one day. Not sure what you have in mind for Turkey. I read that Cappadocia is special, but we haven't been there.

Been to Bulgaria, it was fine, but in my opinion didn't rate on the level with Croatia, Slovenia or Hungary. Dubrovnik, Split and Trogir, Croatia are worth a visit.
Hungary is special. Don't miss it.
Austria is loaded with great places, my favorites, when not skiing are Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg.

Thanks so much for the feedback!

Just to be clear, we were planning 17 days Croatia. 7 days as a breather and 10 for touring.

Friends had toured Bulgaria quite awhile ago and from their stories, I was viewing it more as a necessary travel point from Istanbul rather than a destination on its own. I’ll definitely do some research though.

Germany is non- negotiable (husband particularly wants to go), the Balkans are more my interest - it would be hard to limit the trip in the way you suggest.

We've been to Serbia 2x, Croatia 6x, Romania 2x. All these countries are great. They are both historically interesting (I am particularly interested in Balkans history), interesting from a family perspective, and at this time still a good value.

Beograd is a great city. It is the capital of Serbia. There is the grave of Tito, the Grand Serbian Orthodox Church, a number of museums. There are many great restaurants on boats on the Sava River. We stayed at Hotel Moskva for 150/night - really good value. We found the Serbian welcome to be good - no resentment of the USA citizen. Also in Serbia there is Novi Sad, monasteries (which we have not done), and other sights.

But should you go? I'd like to see your entire itinerary on a day-by-day basis. Also why are you interested in the Balkans? My mom's family were DonauSchwaben residents of N Serbia. Do you have ancestor travel as your motivation?

My great grandparents did emigrate from Croatia (on the Carpathia) prior to WWI. I have little information about them, though we have their passports so perhaps I can glean some details (like home town) from those.

I’m interested in the Balkans because I did intensively tour Western Europe in my 20s and early 30s, so I would like to see some new areas and because I’ve heard wonderful things generally - especially about Bosnia and Croatia.

You haven't mentioned Romania. It's a country with many picturesque cities (not so much Bucharest, where Ceausescu amused himself by knocking down most of the beautiful old buildings) and some outstanding sights in rural areas like Maramures (wooden churches, the Merry Cemetery) and Bucovina (painted monasteries).

Rick has done quite a lot of shows on the Balkans and Turkey. You can watch them all on this website: https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show . They are a good starting point, but keep in mind that 24-25 minutes doesn't allow time to cover all worthwhile destinations.

What were the names of your g-grandparents? Were they Germanic or Croatian?

The ethnic makeup of all of FRY (Former Republic Yugoslavia) was very very mixed. There were Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenians, and those of Germanic heritage. It's pretty easy to determine if your family is of Germanic heritage. I'm not so good at distinguishing between Serbs, Croats, Bosnians. My family names (Brausch, Pfaff, Pfeiffer, Tatter, Teifenthaler, Bieber) are all Germanic.

You can determine what the origin of your g-grandparents by looking at the Ellis Island heritage site, where the information from passenger manifests is all stored. This includes city of origin and citizenship. The nationality of all persons of this area changed repeated from 1900-1940, and again in 1989. So it's a big mess. I go with the Germanic names for towns and villages. But if you could find the name of the village/town that they were from, it would be a special treat to visit that place.

We haven't been to the Balkans, but had a superb tour of Turkey with Insight Tours, (9 days). Glad you are allocating 2 weeks to Turkey. We visited all the major sights, including Cappadoccia, and were very happy with everything. We didn't, of course, visit eastern Turkey due to safety concerns, so Mt. Ararat was out. There is much to see there outside of Istanbul and I recommend a tour that covers more than Istanbul and Ephesus. Also, if you go in the spring, the countryside is overflowing with tulips. Still hoping to see Croatia, but I can highly recommend Vienna, and wish we had had more than 5 days there. Lots of day trips nearby. Prague was fun and inexpensive, but the countryside around it is meh. I envy you your long trip and hope you enjoy all the places you will visit!

Thanks - I will take another look at Romania but was having a similar feeling towards it as Bulgaria.

From a discussion with my grandmother at the time of the Bosnian war, I’m sure they were ethnically Croatian. Her father was not a particularly nice man, so she got ,married as soon as she could and left the culture behind. It will be interesting to visit and experience it.

F&G, you might already be familiar with it, but the book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), by Rebecca West is a noted analysis of the history of Yugoslavia and its peoples, even if it is several decades old.

Good to hear you liked your Insight tour! I was looking at them as well as Intrepid and Steves. Did you feel you had enough time to see what you wanted on your tour?

For Croatia, we are looking at the following:

Dubrovnik - 2 days
Split - 2 days
Krka National Park - 1 day
Zadar - 1 day
Plitvice - 1 day
Opatija, Rovinj and Pula - 1 day (not sure enough?)
Zagreb - 2 days

I know - no islands. I have a dizziness problem which means I avoid boats.

Also, would love any suggestions of where to stay during our week of down time...

Re Insight Tour. Yes, we felt we had enough time in general. We lucked out with a terrific guide who really knew his stuff and took care to help with individual "quests" (Attending church on the Eastern Orthodox Easter). He would give us great comprehensive, yet personal, talks about what we would see, and about the history and context of the places we visited. We always had choices about how much we wanted to participate in at the sights (e.g. climbing those stairs!). There was also unstructured time at the sights as well.
The hotels were all good, breakfast buffets excellent, and bus travel comfortable. We rotated seats daily so everyone got a chance to sit up front. Dinners most days were buffets at our hotels, so they got somewhat monotonous. We did enjoy the terrific honey, tomatoes, citrus and apricots, specialties of Turkey. I still look for apricot preserves from Turkey when I shop, and dries apricots from there as well!
We arrived a day early so were able to see a couple of things in Istanbul not on the tour, and I wish we had stayed an extra day or two afterwards as well, as Istanbul is packed with things to see and do!
If you go to Turkey, enjoy!

We did a tour with Gate 1 in Sept 2019. It covered a lot of ground, including Albania. The guide was from Slovenia and was an encyclopedia of information, which got on my husband's nerves, but I would recommend it. Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia were on the tour, as were 3 national parks. Zagreb was not on our tour. The hotels were good and well located. In areas without the extensive train system that we love in many Western European countries, a tour is quite helpful.

Frednginger, I'd want considerably more than one day for Istria. I haven't been to Pula, having much less than average interest in classical ruins, but I enjoyed Rovinj, Porec (touristy but with a colorful old town), the little coastal town of Vrsar and the inland towns of Groznjan and Motovun. I always like to get away from the touristy coast when I can. I've passed through Opatija on a bus once or twice but never taken the time to see it on foot. My impression is that it has the architecture of a grand resort (with an atmosphere somewhat reminiscent of Locarno in Switzerland), and I prefer more intimate surroundings; that's a matter of taste. One solution might be to choose Istria for your down-time. That would allow you to see it at your leisure.

I'm guessing that when you write "2 days" in Zagreb you actually mean 2 nights, which will be only about 1-1/2 days. Most people would find that adequate, given the natural desire to see a lot of different places. If you happen to be big museum fans, I'd recommend an additional day. Zagreb has a lot of nice art museums (including a small but superlative naive-art museum). There's also the quirky Museum of Broken Relationships. Zagreb's bi-level historic district takes quite a bit of time to see. That's where most of the small museums are located.

So, my husband and I had a big talk about the trip and he is thinking we are moving around too much, moving too fast, being too ambitious. He thinks my goals are unrealistic due to the extent of my dizziness, which may be on certain days (especially after long travel days) incapacitating. He is probably right - this is a new issue and it is hard to acknowledge sometimes the new reality. He wants to go slower, for longer and also wants more Western Europe. He would like us to generally be on a looser schedule, so if I have to sit out a day or only be active half a day, it’s not so big of a deal.

Very roughly, we are now thinking about:

4 weeks Croatia and Bosnia
1 week travel from Croatia thru Slovenia to Venice and time in Venice
1 week bus tour northern Italy
1 week travel from N. Italy to a beauty spot or two in Switzerland and relax - location TBD, any recommends?
5 weeks Switzerland to Germany travel and tour Germany
1 week travel between Germany and Paris (maybe through Belgium?)
Remainder of Schengen time in Paris and travel via chunnel to London
2 weeks London
2 weeks somewhere scenic to relax with easy day trips (Lake District/Cotswolds.? Other recommendations?)
2 weeks Scotland

Then we are considering either flying to Ireland and touring or going directly home.

All thoughts and advice appreciated!

Well, since I may need to be using hiking poles to keep my balance on longer walks while touring or not be able to leave the hotel room at all, guess you can chalk me up with the walker group.

Your input is given the consideration its tone and presentation warrant.

On top of it you insult me about the itinerary without even reading it correctly. Nice.

The pace in your most recent post is fairly similar to the way I travel. I try to spend at least 4 nights at each stop, so I research day-trips within the region and pick a logistically-convenient (as well as attractive) base city or town. In larger places I stay longer, because there will usually be several days' worth of local activities I'm interested in. I prefer not to spend a lot of extra time in large, costly cities while I make day-trips, because that drives up the nightly cost of lodging. Others value not having to change hotels enough that they don't mind the higher hotel costs.

Unless you anticipate a return trip to Scotland, two weeks is much less time than I would recommend. A combination of iffy weather and slow ground transportation in the Highlands and islands means it takes more time than you'd expect to see the country. If your medical condition crops up fairly frequently, that would also argue for some additional padding. Having a car would make you more efficient and allow some flexibility to head in the direction of better weather for the day; I depended on public transportation and wished for more than 26 days, because most of my planned outdoor activities on Skye got washed out. It's very easy to return to London and not so easy to return to western Scotland.

Do you drive? I have the most experience in Croatia, and it's a great plate to relax, but car or no car makes a difference. There are some islands that are so close to the mainland (like less than 30 minutes on the ferry) that you could maybe still consider them--Korcula (neighboring Peljesac peninsula is also nice) and Krk, which actually has a bridge. But of course on the coast you still get all of the loveliness of the islands.

ETA
If you are not drivers, then I would suggest traveling throughout Croatia without a tour. The bus system is actually pretty great, and you can spend more time in all of the places on your tour proposal list quite easily.