Eastern Europe

Too broad a question. What do you like? What do you look forward to? What do you dislike?

Yes James, I guess the question was broad enough to seek a clarification. We have been coming over to Europe every year for the past 6 years and have done one country every time. Till date we have only covered western Europe. Ideally, we would like to continue covering one country at a time, so that we can spend reasonable time at every place we visit. Our visit trend is that we do 3 - 4 cities in the country in a Spanish of 2 weeks. So I guess the obvious question will be - which country / cities do we start with. We like a mix of history as well as relaxation in equal proportions. We have two children ages 16 and 10 years. So these tours also form part of their exposure to diffent cultures. I hope I have depicted our choices and holiday patterns adequately.

Please read the last line of paragraph 1 as "in a span of 2 weeks." That is what the autocorrect function does !!

Well Debabrata, I don't know where you have been but compared to the countries of Western Europe you are heading for some pretty small boundaries with fewer cities and more villages. In two weeks you could easily do Romania or Bulgaria or Hungary or Austria or the Czech Republic. Actually for anyone to spend two full weeks in anyone of these countries is not real common; but its not a bad idea either. I just got back from two weeks in Budapest but I split the trip with four days of fishing in Slovakia. Excellent trip by the way ..... and my 20th something trip to Hungary. So, no, it doesn't get old for me. When discussing Austria or the Czech Republic or Hungary most people hit the capitals and they are worth seeing, but each is different in major ways. So if you might be interested in those three countries why don't you pick a capital and then do the country associated with it. There is a pdf file called "Prague, Vienna or Budapest" at http://budapestflat.shutterfly.com/fivedaysinbudapest that might help you determine which might be more interesting. Then fan out from the capital and see the rest of the country. If you are interested in Romania or Bulgaria the opposite is sort of true as the greatest impact is in the country side and the capitals are not quite as interesting. Again, that same web site has some photos of Romania and Bulgaria (and the Czech Rep, Hungary, Moscow, Slovakia ...) Maybe something will peek your interest.