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Italy to Greece to Eastern Europe...[gulp]

Posted by (Berkeley, CA, United States) on

Ok, I'm backpacking in Europe for the first time and I have 20 days: Rome-Sienna/Lucca-Florence (5 days), then an overnight ferry to Patras in Greece (5 days, including Zankythos and Athens), then Budapest and Prague (6 days), then back to Rome with a stop in Verona (2 days).

Some questions:

(1) Am I insane?

(2) If so, how would you reshape this trip to make it viable (keeping in mind that I'm willing to spend eight hours a day doing nothing but strolling around)?

(3) Transportation: err...how do I get to Budapest from Athens (in less than 48 hours)?

Any other suggestions (good concerts, opera, etc.) would be most welcome.

Thanks!

Posted by
1556 posts

Answer to #3
Flying is probably your only option unless you ferry it back to Italy and from there go by train.

The obvious thing is can you do an open-jaw ticket i.e. fly into Rome and then out of Prague. The way you have this planned you either have a lot of backtracking or you will need to spend money to fly. The alternative to flying from ATH to BUD is to travel through the Balkans which is not too difficult but not too easy either and will take a lot of time since you will need to go through Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, before getting to Hungary.

Others may have better suggestions for you.

Posted by
7569 posts

Well, for transport, there are a number of options, I am just not sure of details:
1. Ferry back to Italy then train to Budapest. 2. Fly Direct 3. Rail (via Bulgaria and Romania) 4 Combo: Cheap flight on Aegean Air to Romania(Bucharest), Rail from there. and 5. The route mentioned above, Minibus through Albania into Croatia, Bus or train from there.

Posted by
683 posts

To answer your first question-- YES, you are
This should not affect your trip
Otherwise, you could leave out Prague and be leisurely in how long you take to get to Budapest (which, in our opinion, should not be missed). then take boat to Vienna and train south to Venice and on to Rome

Posted by
2 posts

Thanks, you guys. I think I've found some reasonable flight options. Unfortunately my final departure has to be from Rome, so I'll lose a little time having to travel back.

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