Eastern Europe

Yours is a pretty open question. You don't list what are your desires, likes, wants. Do you want big cities or nature. Eastern Europe is very large - you need to do some homework to narrow down what you want. Are you looking to do a 2 week trip or an 8 week trip. Unless you do this legwork the responses you get will be all over the map and not of much use to you.

I travelled to Poland last August and it was a blast. Warsaw is the most cosmopolitan and the whole country pretty much goes through Warsaw one way or another. From Spain you could catch a continetal flight to Warsaw. It would probably be the cheapest. Most younger people in Warsaw will speak English as of course people working in the travel and tourism industry.
Sites to see: Palace of Arts and Sciences. It's the gothic looking building that dominates the skyline. It's cool to take a pic in that area. Old Town- very picturesque and post card like. Definitely a romantic atmosphere in the evening. The "New" town. Royal Route.The Route is a few kilometres but worth it as it's a very beautiful street with old style buildings and statues. The Royal Castle Square-also a very beautiful place to take pics.You can tour the castle. Nowy Swiat (new world)-beautiful street where people go shopping.Lazienki park is a must see too and Palace Wilanow.U can easily google this and Warsaw accomodation

Order Rick Steves book on Eastern Europe, the 2008 edition, from his travel store elsewhere on this web site. It has all the information you will need. If you want a second book, Lonely Planet also has a good book on Eastern Europe.

Definitely go to Prague. It was so pretty and a great city. So much to see and do. We stayed at the Hotel Metamorphis (took a Rick Steves Tour of Prague) which was very close to Old Town Square.

I can't wait to go back.

Definately go to Prague!!

I was there this past fall and it is an absolutely amazing city. The city is just so beautiful and there is so much to see and do. I went to Kutna Hora on a side trip and it was definately an interesting side trip.

I stayed in the Guesthouse Lida (Rick reccomended) and the house and the owners were both lovely. They also helped you out with directions, booking shows, tours, etc. and telling you how to buy metro tickets. The breakfast is amazing too.

Well that's the only eastern Europe cities I've been to.

Places that would be worth visiting depending on how much hopping around you want to do and how much time you have to spend:

In no particular order, the following are all worthwhile: Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Ljubjlana, Dubrovnik, Sofia, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, Brasov, Riga, Vilnius & Trakai, and especially Tallinn. Also, Warsaw and Krakow. Again it comes down to what you are interested in.

Hi Ashley, I went on the Rick Steves "Best of Eastern Europe" tour last May (2007) then continued on my own from Slovenia to Croatia (Split and then Dubrovnik). Check out the Rick Steves Eastern Europe book and the itinerary on this site. You can't go wrong with any of the locations on that tour. I especially like Prague and Krakow, although Prague gets quite busy in the summer time.

Ciao,

Ross in Milan

Ashley,

You are askinga general question which is hard to answer in my opinion.It depends on what you like to explore. You can find answers to all your questions by searching the internet and/or from books. As another poster said get RS's books about Europe, or other book guides like Frommers, loneley planet tc. There are many out there.
I see you are already in Europe now, but if you were here in the US, you could ahve gotten them for free from your local library.

I'd pick Croatia and Slovenia hands down over Prague any day. Way cheaper, amazingly picturesque and nary an American in sight. Even though I am American, I prefer to travel where I find the least amount of them and in 3 weeks going all around Croatia, we only saw one--she was the one talking at the top of her voice to mom at an internet cafe.