Suggestions for a Late December Europe Trip

You might want to consider the short amount of daylight hours in Oslo and Helsinki that time of year? For instance, I'm looking at January 1 in Oslo; sunrise is at 9:18 AM and sets at 3:23. Helsinki is about the same.

We loved Belgium: lots of the very things you enjoy - history, museums, and architecture - and great food and excellent beer as a bonus. You'll also find plenty to point a lens at! We've only done Bruges. Ghent, Antwerp and a little bit of Brussels but highly recommend any of the first 3. Bruges (1) and Ghent (2) would be particularly photogenic in snow.

7 days isn't really very long to cram 2 countries into but I guess you could scoot down to Luxembourg (from Belgium) if you can't be convinced to limit your week to just one.

Thanks. I forgot about the daylight. Looks like Brussels and Vienna are my top contenders now.

Wait now, do you think the folks in these northern countries just go to bed at 2:30 in the afternoon? This is when cities can come alive with lights, theater, music, wine bars and cafes; and just because the sun has gone down, doesn't mean the shops and the museums have closed. Life goes on and it can be brilliant. If you are going for a cultural experience, this is an important part of that. And geeee, this looks miserable, doesn't it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ax2_ev4ybY

James,
That looks beautiful! Have you been to Budapest yourself and recommend it? I've been leary of visiting some of Eastern Europe but seems like lots of people have had a great time there.

I just reread your post and 7 days is sort of tight for Krakow - Budapest. Transportation between the two is an all day affair. Also, not sure if winter is the right time to see Krakow. Some cities like Budapest and Prague and Vienna lend themselves to winter travel; other I think are better appreciated in good weather; like Paris I think is so wonderful in the spring and fall I cant imagine using time to see it at any other time. But, just me..... Unless you are going to return at another time of the year look for a place where the weather or the winter culture adds to the visit. I would suspect that Oslo would fall into that category.

The dark thingie: I was thinking of his interest in photography. Thought a few more hours of daylight might be welcome there but absolutely, life doesn't stop after sundown!

Excellent point Kathy! Didn't occur to me.

But yours was an excellent point of view as well, James.

I travel to meet people and for experiences; so I scour every source for the special and the unique and the once in a lifetime. That pretty much determines when and where I go. All sorts of amazing holidays and festivals and events to choose from no matter the time of the year.

You didn't mention whether or not you were interested in Christmas markets. If so, Vienna would be a good choice. You could pair with Munich or Salzburg.

I took the RS tour in Istanbul last December and had a wonderful time. There was plenty to see and do for 7 days. The weather was cooperative - reasonably warm during the day with a jacket, chilly in the evening. Most restaurants still had outdoor seating with heaters, and there was lots of street life.

Last december we spent three days in Prague and Christmas in Budapest. Both are very photogenic cities. Old town Prague was very busy. Budapest much less so. I took dawn and dusk photo tours in each city and much enjoyed them. I would suggest Budapest and Vienna as it is long train ride from Prague to Budapest.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Much appreciated!

Thanks for all the suggestions. Much appreciated!

With their easy connection by train, and given your limited time, I would go with Vienna and Budapest.

Thanks. Was Budapest fairly safe to travel to?

I would say that Budapest is safer than any American big city. But I was only a visitor there. James who lives in a suburb of a big American city and also in Budapest can probably confirm it.

In a word YES
September 2001 … Vienna is a great city, but for some reason my wife and I didn’t get comfortable there. The morning of the third day we looked at each other and simultaneously we both said; “let’s go someplace else”. I called the hotel in Budapest (The Opera K&K) and changed the reservation for arrival that day, asked for a decent place for dinner, so we could at least have that much planned, and then headed for the train station.

An hour or so out of Vienna the train stopped and we were boarded by “gentlemen” in black uniforms carrying automatic weapons. My wife began to panic. One of the soldiers approached and began demanding something in the most unintelligible language I had ever heard. I grabbed my wife’s passport and ticket and together with mine shoved them in front of the soldier. Of course, it was just a document check. Good G-d, where were we going? Shortly after getting comfortable again, out the train window we caught sight of a statue of a Turul and the tenseness began to grow once again.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/230/496431524_f5bb4f5871.jpg?v=0
We arrived at Keleti Station in Budapest about an hour before sunset. Remember this was the Fall and the sun begins to set early in that part of the world. Keleti is a magnificent station, and would have appeared so then if they had ever taken the time too clean to coal suet off the walls and ceilings. Good G-d, I have taken my wife into the heart of hell. The station has since seen much cleaning and is a beautiful station: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Budapest_East_Station_2.jpg/800px-Budapest_East_Station_2.jpg

The trains are now mostly new equipment and the tracks have been improved so the 3:15 hour trip, now takes about 2:30.

Upon arrival we took our excessive luggage and headed for the front entrance of the station. Upon walking outside it was a beautiful, cool, sunny afternoon and ………….. wait; a short, stocky, mustached, stereotypical communist looking gentleman was grabbing at the luggage. Crap, what the hell have I done! Before I could react, and to my astonishment, a taxi drives up over the curb and onto the side walk. The driver, a young kid, gets out and runs to our rescue. He and the commie begin arguing, arms waving as they get up in each other’s faces. Then as abruptly as it had begun it ended. Hell, it was two cabbies fighting over a fare; me! We chose the kid because I thought that if needed I could win a fight with him.

The kid knew maybe six words in English, but after some of our efforts, responded to with phrases like; “no tour guide”, he understood that we just wanted to be driven around town. Remember we did no research and had no idea where we were. Once he understood this was on the meter he was happy to oblige.

He drove us through amazing neighborhoods, down great avenues, past magnificent, all be it unrestored, buildings and along the banks of the Danube. Then we crossed the Chain Bridge, and began climbing higher and higher as it got darker and darker. I suggested maybe we should head for the hotel, but he either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. Darker, higher, more remote. Now pitch dark and I knew the outcome. We were being hijacked for a mugging and robbery. Of course, we were behind the Iron Curtain and these were commies.

As predicted he pulled to the side along a deserted stretch of road and ordered us out of the car. We did as directed. Then he demanded we turn and face the car. I was beginning to judge distances, watching his hand movements for a weapon and sizing up the options to fight back or flee. We turned as directed. Now before I can explain what came next you have to see what we had sitting before us:
http://www.continentaltravel.hu/UserFiles/Image/old_pics/dontve%20esti.jpg

All the events and worries of the last 15 minutes melted away and I knew our only mistake was not planning enough time for Budapest. Looking straight ahead, sort of stunned by the vista, I told my wife, “we are coming back”. Her confused response was, “we just got here”.

That comfort we couldn’t find in Vienna came instantly in Budapest. I felt right at home in the most unfamiliar familiarity imaginable.

We now have a home and a part time business in Budapest. We travel back no less than 3 times a year. My 20-something year old daughter knows the streets of Budapest as well as she does her home town. If she wanted to stay out till 2 am I’m good with it. Budapest is that safe, that comfortable and that magnificent.

We have experienced one issue traveling between Vienna and Budapest in recent years; a slightly “strange” homeless man in the station in Vienna. During the migration crisis last year trains were disrupted to some degree and I had to send a driver to pick up a guest in Vienna; but Hungary and Austria have both created measures to limit that from happening again.

My 20-something year old niece who has never been out of her hometown is flying into Vienna in a few weeks; then she is taking the train to Budapest to join us. I'm not worried about her safety at all. She might get on the wrong train or otherwise screw up, but she will be safe. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/in/Budapest

Okay, "YES" was too obvious and too easy.....

But Ilja, no place or situation in the world is significantly safer than my life in the US. Although Budapest is on par.

What a great story, James. I, too, have had some "My God; what have I done?" moments as I arrived for a 3- or 4-night stay somewhere new, but nothing as interesting as that!

For me, it's usually just a matter of getting away from what is sometimes a fairly gritty area in the immediate vicinity of the train of bus station.

I return Dec. 30 and I can't wait to be back.

Thanks. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...

James, you should be a writer. Your story is like a thriller. But change the date; September 2001 commies had been already gone for 12 years. Hungarians got their lesson in 1956 after Soviets crushed their uprising. They paid lip service to communism or kept their mouth shut but had their economy policies the most liberal in the Soviet bloc. We (then in Czechoslovakia {after 1968 Prague Spring crushed by Soviet tanks} became very hardline politically and economically) had a joke: Hungarians are like radishes - red only on the surface. In late seventies trip to Budapest was for us Czechoslovaks like a trip to the West (where we could never get anyway but saw it in movies), the stores full of western goods, no shortages. Nowhere in eastern bloc you could see something like that. East Germany and Czechoslovakia were well behind, not to mention really poor communist countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia.

I know the history, but this was a time when there was little on the internet about eastern Europe so the perception that eastern Europe was still full of commies was real, and part of why it seems hilarious to me now 15 years later.

Reminds me of another story. I was working for the government in 1989 and we had some visiting business associates from Germany. It was either the week deer season opened or the week prior, don't remember now, but I took them out to the country because they wanted to shoot guns and try hunting. The guys were drinking in the hot tub one evening and I went to get another six pack. In the kitchen I heard the radio announcer say that the wall was coming down. What a better place to be, than with three Germans on such a historic occasion. So I rushed back outside to tell them the good news. They were pissed. All they could think of was how it was going to impact the West German government to try and rebuild East Germany and they wanted no part of it. So much for a celebration.......

I love it when these threads take unexpected twists & turns. Thanks James E for the story about Budapest.

Well, egillespie, I don't know about YOU but James just put Budapest on MY Bucket List!
Got a great couple of stories out of the deal too. :O)

I would do Belgium and Austria or Belgium and Hungary

@ James...Your first trip to BP was in Sept 2001, a couple of months earlier in July 2001 I crossed into Poland for the first time from Berlin Zoo en route to Warsaw, got there by 1500 hrs or so. Arriving in Warsaw was no thriller like yours in BP. Crossing into Poland, the ensuing passport check and arriving at Warsaw Central Station was nothing like your encounter. I missed out.

Fred, prior to that I had traveled to Egypt, Greece and Italy in the 80's and then nothing till a few trips to the UK, France and Italy in the mind 90's. So "Eastern" Europe was a huge experiment and the thrills were bornnout of ignorance. You remember the time, very little on the internet and print for the region at the turn of the millennium. But I fell in love with the people and the life. I see a little of what saw in Budapest 15 years ago in Kiev today. The architecture isn't as good, but the people and the cultural norms are very similar. Its next on my radar for an investment retreat.

A few nights ago in our home town (one of the top ten largest in the US) we went to this really beautiful art deco theater to see a Broadway play. Before the performance began, in this truly amazing ornate old theater, sales staff walked up and down the aisles selling beer and nachos...... During the performance the audience hooted and hollered at the appropriate times and the dress code required nothing but the finest sweatshirts. Tickets were nearly $100 each. G-d I cant wait to get to Budapest in January. I have Opera, Operett and Jazz Club tickets. And I know there will be no nachos, no beer, no cell phones buzzing, and no slobs (except for the tourists in the cheap seats). Going to the Circus too and I expect that even that will be a better experience than what I get here in my home town.

Re: the classy ornate theater and then the nachos there...totally declassé. No wonder you want to go back to the famous Operetta House in BP, I would too. A former high school teacher (American) told me of his Europe trip in the early 1990s, when he went as college backpacker solo in former Yugoslavia, to Greece, etc, got to Montenegro, guards (Montenegrin or Serb...who knows) came on the train, screaming at him, thought probably he was a spy, whatever since he didn't know what going on, guards were carrying their weapons. At one point in this scary encounter, he told me the guards started screaming at each other, which got the attention off of him, Of course, he didn't know any foreign languages, no French or German... would not have done any good anyway. In the end they let him good thinking that he was a dumb American kid with a backpack. I told him he had guts.

Yeah, Fred,
early nineties; that's when we bombed Belgrade and some other towns in Serbia. I know he did not do it but was an American. I think he was lucky he did not see Yugoslavian jail from inside.

That was the late 90s when NATO had their bombing campaign against the rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), not the early 90s. NATO conducted limited bombing raids against Bosnian Serb artillery targets in 1995 at the end of the Bosnian civil war, but I don't think Serbia proper was hit until 1998 or 1999 during the Kosovo war. Either way, the West and Americans in particular were not particular popular in Serbia for most of the 1990s.... not exactly that country's finest decade, you might say.

You remember the time, very little on the internet and print for the region at the turn of the millennium.

There probably wasn't much on Hungary, but the disintegration of Yugoslavia was all over the news back then, when CNN and the US media still actually reported current events and provided useful analysis from outside the country.

Tom,
I was relying on my memory but Wikipedia and you told me that I shouldn't.

The early 1990s after Desert Shield saw the US adopt a "hands off" policy towards the Bosnian War. Neither Clinton nor Bush mentioned it obviously with the 1992 election coming up. I was in Europe only in the early 1990s, ie 1992 only in France and Germany. Not until 1995 did I return for another trip, at which time Croatia intervened.