Please guide us. We have never traveled to Eastern Europe. We are taking a tour in late May, 2013, to Budapest and Prague, and would like to add another city or two relatively nearby. We would stay in Europe when the tour left for home, and continue on our own. Which cities would you suggest? Why?

Many thanks!

S G

Vienna or Chesky Krumlov

Vienna, of course.

Either Vienna, or going back the other way up the Elbe to Dresden and Berlin.

First, these cities are all central europe. Eastern europe is Russia, Ukraine et al.

The obvious third choice is Vienna - which has a plethora of things to do. (All 3 cities are part of the former Austro-Hungarian empire).

Without knowing how much time you have - it's hard to make specific recommendations.

I'm going on a cruise at the end of next week, from Prague to Budapest.

Here are the places the ship is stopping at or near, in order from Budapest to Prague:

Bratislava (Slovakia), Vienna, Melk, Salzburg, Passau, Rengensburg, Nurneburg, Prague.

I hope this helps you think about more places to go.

How much time do you have? You could rent a car & explore the Czech Republic, which we did several years ago. You could go to Cesky Krumlov, Telc, & Karlovy Vary.

Or Vienna, as everyone suggests, or Krakow. We loved Krakow!

Vienna because it's lovely, joyous, and has a cafe with fabulous pastries on every corner (well, almost every corner!).

Krakow - warm and friendly people, interesting sightseeing, great square.

foodor has two gems..

We included Vienna in our trip this year and saw a performance of the Lipizzaner horses. It's expensive and I'm not a big animal fan, but my daughter wanted to do this and I'm so glad we did. It was fabulous. You will need to book tickets early.

We also did a day trip to Cesky Krumlov and enjoyed it very much, truly a story book town.

I would agree with the people who mentioned Cesky Krumlov. Fabulous world heritage town. Many people do as a daytrip from Prague, but we did an overnight and would not have minded doing two nights in this charming town. If the weather is nice you can take a float down the river. Here is a link to my trip report from CK along with pictures:
http://www.fromhometoroam.com/2012/06/cesky-krumlov/