Middle Europe

We have made several trips to Europe but the one I am planning for 2017 may be too optimistic.

We will be coming off of a cruise ship from doing a TA and the ship will come into Barcelona.

Travel would be by primarily by rail. The places I would like to visit are as follows)

Greece

Turkey

Croatia (We do have ports in Croatia)

Hungary (Budapest)

Slovania (Lake Bled) (We port at Koper which is quite aways from Lake Bled)

Czech Republic (Prague)

Poland (Krakow)

Austria Vienna)

We will have 18 days and then have to be back in Barcelona to catch another ship.

To anyone familiar with this area of Europe is this not a good plan?

Thank you in advance.

Unless you want to spend all the time travelling I think that's too many countries. I would cut it down to maybe Lake Bled, Prague and Vienna or Greece and Turkey.

I have been to all those places. We spent a week in Lake Bled last September, it's lovely.

It also depends what time of year you are intending to go. It can be very cold in most of those places in the winter months.

First thing that grabs me is the distance from Barcelona to any of those places. :eek:

And since your planned cruises mean you have to both start and finish there, that grabs me twice.

So I suggest you fix flights between Barca and the most inconvenient places on your eventual itinerary. If you stick with all the places on your list that's likely to be from Barca to Krakow and from Istanbul back to Barca.

Or, if you dropped Turkey & Greece, from Barca to Krakow & back from Trieste to Barca.

Even with that time-saving, you really do need to do some trimming. ;)

Istanbul? (the only place in Turkey that makes any sort of sense on your itinerary). A favourite of mine, but out on a limb from the other places on your list. Also the political situation is problematic and may well be worse next year - if so, a cancellation can cause you a major headache re-jigging your tour.

Greece? Also a little out-on-a-limb. Adding ferries to your itinerary would add time and complication, and there are few places on the mainland worth visiting - primarily Athens. Are there no Greek ports on your cruises?

I've not checked train schedules, but the time & distance by road (below) gives an indication.

Your provisional tour involves travel of around

5,500 miles & 84 hours .

If you lose Istanbul & Greece, and fly Barca to Krakow / Trieste to Barca, that reduces your travel to

1,000 miles & 16 hours (plus those two flights)

I get the impression from your planned itinerary that you've already been to much of western Europe, but that would give you the opportunity to also include one or two other much more convenient easterly places like Berlin, Bratislava or Salzburg.

Budapest is worth a full day.

Prague also at least a full day, try to make it two.

And fit in a "black light theatre" show.

Vienna two days, mebbe three.

Krakow presumably for Auschwitz (daily van excursions from Krakow, about an hour e/w), but try to also fit in the salt mine. And Krakow itself is very attractive & compact - a good base.

I've not been to Dachau (near Munich), but it could be a more convenient substitute for Auschwitz.

I'm guessing you're planning to store some luggage in Barcelona, to avoid having to cart it all over Europe.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g187497-c212528/Barcelona:Spain:Luggage.Storage.html

JB :)

Yikes!!!

In March I did a week for just Vienna-Ceske Krumlov-Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary)-Marienbad (Mariansky Lazney)-Dresden-Leipzig by car. Didn't do Prague and really wanted to try and make it up to Berlin but there just wasn't enough time. I really think you're being overly ambitious and your destinations are waaaay out of the way from each other. Get a better map of central Europe and have a look.

We just got back from doing a similar trip. We went to Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Austria in 9 days. We flew into Prague, saw Charles Bridge and different top sights. Next day we went to Cesky Kumlov bus tour followed by folklore show. Next day Prague castle followed by Kutna Hora at 1pm and then dinner and night train to Kraków. Next day Wawel castle, churches, Market Square, carriage ride. We had extra time so we fit in Jewish quarter and concert. Next day Auschwitz and Salt Mine in one day followed by overnight train to Budapest. Next day day sights of Buda. Next sights of Pest and overnight train to Vienna, Austria. Next day, Schonbrunn and Hofburg palace and sights of Vienna. Next day we went to Hallstatt, Obertraun cable car and Melk Abbey. Next day fly home. I had been concerned that it would be too draining but it turned out to be okay. Just gives you an idea of how it can be arranged

As far as Istanbul, our cousins just moved out about 10 days ago after living there almost 10 years. They loved it before but said the current situation was too unstable and they didn't feel safe there any longer

We did a 7 day cruise with stops in Croatia, Ephesus in Turkey and 2 stops in Greece so perhaps you could work out a land tour like I have combined with a cruise

While in Europe places of interest are considerably closer to each other than in other countries, those are quite some distances you want to cover.

I would suggest you focus on a couple of those destinations. From personal experience, I see a nice north to south route there. Start in Krakow, spend two days, go to Prague, spend 3 days, proceed to Vienna, spend 3 days, continue on to Slovenia, spend some time (I am not familiar with Lake Bled, so not sure how much time you would like to allocate to that stop), then continue on to Budapest and spend another 3 days there. The distances between those places can be easily covered within 4-5 hours for each leg of the route, and as most of them are major cities, there would be good railway or bus connections. So I think it is feasible with focusing on some of the places.

This itinerary would allow you to spend three days in most of the places you mentioned, however, it would not include Croatia, Greece or Turkey. I think they are too far away to include them unless you want to rush from one place to another. To put things into perspective, Athens is a 2.5 hour flight from Vienna, for example.

Of course you would have to fly from Barcelona to Krakow and back from Budapest to Barcelona. Those will be 2-3 hour flights each. I don't think these distances can be easily done by ground transportation.

Hope that gives you a bit of an idea. Enjoy planning! And also look into bus connections between those cities as in parts of eastern Europe it is more common to travel by bus than by train. Buses are often cheaper than trains and equally comfortable.

Thank you so much for the suggestions and information! :)

Yes we have traveled quite a bit in the rest of Europe, actual travel, in addition to cruises.

We also have been to Ephesus in Turkey and in Greece, Athens and Santorini, so I could take Greece and Turkey off while still hoping for a chance at Istanbul maybe.

We will be on Celebrity Constellation for four consecutive cruises, with a number of stops in Croatia, and Slovenia is also on one of the itineraries.

That leaves me with Hungary (Budapest), Czech Republic (Prague), Poland (Krakow), and Austria Vienna).

We will have 18 days from the arrival in Barcelona of our TA and the beginning of the cruises on Constellation which departs from Barcelona. So yes flying in and out of Barcelona will be best.

And yes I do have a good map, but other travelers experiences can be much better than just looking at maps. :D

On the trip we just completed we were able to store luggage at the hotel we stayed at in Southampton after we got off Navigator. That made it much easier while we traveled by train to Amsterdam and Brussels where we spent five nights each.

Thanks for all the info, I really appreciate it. :)

I suggest going onto the Eurail website. You can enter the cities you want to visit and it will give you a time frame. Budapest to Krakow was a lot farther apart than I had originally planned. It might be in your best interest to book a flight from Barcelona to another city and work your way back via train. We ended up flying from Budapest to Milan in order to save time on our last trip.

Thank you.

A really informative website for rail travel all over Europe is http://www.seat61.com. suggestions of feasible routes and the best websites to book tickets on.

Coming back to this thread with what we think should work. :)

Eurail's website was great for making our reservation's for this summer's non cruise travel, so will do that again.

I really enjoy "the man in seat 61".

We now have two blocks of time between ships, 18 days in May and 17 days in July.

From my original overly ambitious list......

Croatia and Slovenia will be by cruise ship.

Greece I'll drop since we have been there a couple times.

Turkey... I really want to go to Istanbul but we will have to see what the political situation is in summer 2017. We could do this in July when we have the additional time.

Barcelona to and from will be by plane.

We will schedule our rail travel beginning in Vienna for Krakow, Prague and Budapest, then fly back to Barcelona. Not necessarily in that order, but at least we now have a plan.

Thank you all for your responses! :)

I've come into this a bit late. Agree your original plan was a bit optimistic, but I wondered if you had considered a river and canal cruise? There are many firms that do cruises down the Danube (amongst many other rivers). My Mum has been many of these all across Europe and they work out well. Normally, tours are included in your price. She usually uses Viking (though there are several other lines) and has done a dozen or more cruises with them. You could easily fly up to somewhere like Koln or Frankfurt and get a cruise down to Vienna or Budapest. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

Simon

Simon, thank you for your suggestion. :)