I am taking a tour in Romania April 30-May 10. Start is in Cluj and ends in Bucharest. I am planning a trip of about 10 weeks, starting in France which is a favourite spot. On the list of places to visit are Dusseldorf to visit family, Prague and Budapest and possibly Slovenia and or Croatia after the tour. I will use public transportation only.
Please help me plan this big trip. I have asked AI for advice but prefer to hear some of your suggestions. Thanks in advance.
I was going to suggest Hungary, but you already plan to go there.
You have 10 weeks to visit France, Germany, Prague and Budapest, possibly Slovenia or Croatia.
That is quite a lot to cover even in 10 weeks.
France, Paris deserves 6-7 days. Next consider the following areas of France: Normandy 3 days, Alsace (Strasbourg) 3 days, Lyon and the Rhone River Valley down to Provence and the Rivera. Give that at least a week. There is more to France, but you have about 3 weeks already.
Germany, family in Dusseldorf, then do some touring in the Rhine River Valley, including Cologne, Rudesheim, Trier, Wiesbaden/Frankfurt, Heidelberg, then consider Bavaria for a week. Then Austria (Salzburg and Vienna) 4-6 days, Prague (3-4 days) and on to Hungary.
Budapest and Hungary need at least a week. Now you have used at least another month, with about three weeks left. Need at least a week in Romania.
If you add Slovenia, that is easy to do prior to Budapest. You could consider doing Bulgaria or Serbia that are nearby.
Suggest you do some research to determine WHAT exactly you want to see. TripAdvisor.com use "things to do" and decides what you want to see. Planning is fun, you learn more about where you are going and that means your visit will be enhanced.
Thanks so much. Great ideas. So much to consider when planning a long trip.
⁹Do you mean public transportation or do you mean train and / or bus?
So, France / Duselforf to Cluj by bus and train is fixed? I would make a 2 day trip out of it. But you gotta go through Budapest which makes it better to do Budaprst before, not after Romania.
Part of the challenge for me would be Romania to any other country via train or bus. I just don't do well sitting for long periods of time. May probably won't be too warm, so the lack of AC isn't an issue and I have new stomach meds so Romanian, including train, toilets will rarely be an issue.
If i placed a limit of 10 hours by train or bus; from Bucharest it's Sofia, Bulgaria.
From Cluj it's Hungary or Ukraine. I didn't double check all the options, just my gut.
Thanks. I will use trains or buses or fly if I need to to save time. I don’t want a day long train or bus ride.
The problrm is Bucharest is so far removed from where yiu want to go. I have 2 ideas
The adventure trip.
The very predictable tourist version.
Two days a week there are direct flights from Bucharest to Dubrovnik.
4 nights in Dubrovnik
Use two weeks to travel up the coast to to Slovenia on buses, then Ljubljana to Prague by train with 4 days in Prague.
A bit of 1 and 2
Fly Bucharest to Podgorica
Spend a week touring Montenegro's Adriatic coast.
Use two weeks to travel up the coast to to Slovenia on buses, then Ljubljana to Prague by train with 4 days in Prague.
I go fairly often to the region so for some of Croatia and a lot of Montenegro i have some resources. PM if any of those above are interesting.
Thanks for the information.
Above i made mention of visiting Serbia. I was attempting to be open minded. I knew better than suggest a place I would never want to return to. My apologies.
Hi June, I'm a little confused by your question (it doesn't take much to confuse me). . So your total trip is 10 weeks, including the 10-day tour of Romania? If so, since you do have Budapest on your list, I would either put Budapest at the beginning of your Romania tour or at the end, because it's so easy to get there from Bucharest or Cluj.
I'm not sure if you're looking for additional places or if you're looking for what order to put the above countries in. So I will put what I think is a logical order for the countries, and let me know if I'm totally off base here.
It sounds like you are starting in France. After that, it would make sense to go to Dusseldorf in Germany. From Germany, head to Prague, then on to Budapest. From Budapest, it's a quick flight to Cluj-Napoca and the start of your Romania tour. Your tour ends in Bucharest, so fly from Bucharest to Croatia and then travel to Slovenia.
Not counting your 10 days in Romania, that would leave you with 7 countries in 60 days. It's a nice mixture, and really no backtracking at all. I would love to be on a trip like that. 😊
I agree that there are many places where you would want to fly, and one of those is Romania. While they do have trains there, they are not the fastest method of transportation, and there are flights going all over. I would definitely fly into Cluj and fly out of Bucharest to wherever you go. France and Germany, of course, have faster trains, so you might want to stick with that for your mode of transportation there.
Having said that, is that what you are looking for? Or are you looking for possible substitutions for your list here? Or additional countries to travel to? I know that 10 weeks is a long time, but I think that what you've got now makes a complementary list of places you could easily see during your 10 week period.
To Mardee,
I just want to compliment you on an itinerary suggestion that sounds very well-planned and enjoyable too. I'm not heading to June's destinations, but if I were, I would hire you as my trip planner!
Judy, that is so nice thing of you to say! I do like planning trips and June’s list of countries just makes me salivate. What a wonderful 10-week trip this would be!
Mardees plan is excellent, but the suggested flight legs all have changes and can be 6 hours or more and none are discount carriers. I just like easier connections and cheaper flights.
Do your France and Germany and end in Prague. Thats maybe all trains.
Then there is a direct flight to Zagreb a few times a week from Prague. Go to Slovenia if you want, then travel down Croatia and end in Dubrovnik.
From Dubrovnik there is a direct flight to Cluj N. that starts at $20 a few days a week.
After your tour there are direct flights to Budapest from Bucharest.
I dont think any of the flights are more than 1.3 hours and the airports are easy. I suspect you will save 12 hours or more in travel time and many hundreds of dollars.
But tgere is one big issue with this suggestion that Mardee's plan doesnt have. With this plan you have to finesse the dates because the first two connections dont fly every day.
