How to get to and from eastern Europe with a subsequent stay in France.
 

This summer we would like to see Bulgaria and Romania, and then go back to France before returning to the States. Our planned departure would be from NYC (May 17) although a return to SFO (July 5) would be preferable. What would be an economical way of getting to Bulgaria and then returning from Romania? I looked into the purchase/resell option, but that represents at least 800 miles of driving both ways since the closest pick-up is either Munich or Milan. Flights from Vienna to Sofia seem to start at 421 euros one way, and 166 euros one way from Berlin to Varna. Would it make sense to take an open jaw NYC-Vienna-Paris-NYC (of SFO) and then take the train to Sofia? Any suggestions? What about travel within these countries? I thought of renting a car in Bulgaria, then taking the train to Romania, and renting a car there.

You could do open jaw - but think about R-T into/out of Paris. Then you can use trains or any number of lowcost airlines w/i Europe. Depending on your exact itinerary, R-T Paris would probably be substantially cheaper than open jaws involving eastern Europe and Paris.

Unfortunately, Romania I know is a tough spot for readily available discount flights. Only Italy has any discount connections into or out of Romania by air. And then from what I've seen, generally not daily.

whichbudget.com shows one company with flights into the Black sea coastal towns from Belgium, but I don't know anything about them, and a charter co. from some places in Germany. Nothing to Sofia on the discounts. I played around with Paris to Sofia and Bucharest and mostly came up w/ 1 stop flights and pretty expensive on the majors.

I'd suggest London as your connect point. BA does a non-stop to both Sofia and Bucharest. I saw $347 open jaw, which isn't too bad... considering the average. That was through onetravel.com.

This kind of thing, plus car issues, is why we launched into Romania from Budapest in October. Budapest was cheap to get to (relatively), and we found a car rent we could cross the border with and bring back to Hungary. Not true for RO cars coming out. I'm almost certain that you will have to have separate car rents for Bulgaria and for Romania, judging by a lot of the fine print I've read.

I can't help on Bulgaria, but if you have questions on Romania driving, etc, I've done that much.

Also, try the thorntree forum on Lonely Planet. Alex aka Romanian_Bat is knowledgeable about transport across the Romanian-Bulgarian border. I'm pretty sure he's said bus is better than train, but I'm not sure that's the case still.

Actually... if I was doing this myself..

I'd book from US open jaw into Athens, out of Paris. See Acropolis, overnight train to Sofia w/ change in Thessaloniki. Drive Bulgaria, leave car. Bus or o/n train to Bucharest. Pick up car, drive Romania, drop car in Timisoara, Oradea for day train or Cluj for the night train to Budapest. Time in Budapest or next cheap flight to Paris.

Go to one of the three big global airline alliances:

http://www.oneworld.com
http://www.star-alliance.com
http://www.skyteam.com

and look for their European "airpass" programs (different names, same idea.) If you fly on one of their member airlines over the pond (e.g., United/Lufthansa/SAS etc. for Star, American or British for OW, Delta/Air France etc. for Skyteam) you can purchase "discover Europe" airpasses or deeply discounted tickets for travel within Europe that are typically comparably priced to low-cost carriers' tickets, except they're on the mainline carriers like Air France or Lufthansa or BA, so that cities that aren't well served by the Easyjets or Ryanairs (like most cities in E. Europe) can be accessed easily. Usually you need to buy 2 or 3 of these segments, priced typically on the distance of the flight, and you need to buy them before you travel transatlantic. But for the Sofias or Istanbul itineraries, they're excellent value compared to trains and rental cars. Rather quicker, too.

On http://www.skyeurope.com/start.php?lang=en Sky Europe show flights from Budapest Ferihegy airport at 1645 to Paris at 1905 for 21 990 Hungarian florins, or 89 euros. The reference library of a city near you may have the Thomas Cook European Rail timetable. Table 61 shows that the Ister Express, with restaurant car and sleeping cars, leaves Bucharest Nord at 1900 and Brasov at 2136 and reaches Budapest Keleti at 0652 (which due to a time shift feels like 0752). The fare in a 3 berth sleeper is 120 euros.

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Whatever you decide, for at least the flight over and back check fares on the cosolidator site at www.onetravel.com which often offers substantial discounts and unlike some other sites such as mobissimo.com you can search for open jaw itineraries. You might also double check using www.itasoftware.com as well.

Gardyloo--

I'm curious about price on these alliance vouchers. I found the info about the pass on the SkyTeam website, but it didn't give any info about price. Do you have any idea of price? Also, do you know if these are any better deal than EuropebyAir's $99 flight pass system? Thanks.

<b>one</b>world: http://www.oneworld.com/products/det...fm?ObjectID=25

Star: http://www.star-alliance.com/star_al...e/main_10.html - look at &quot;airpasses.&quot; You can get an idea of prices (current?) here: http://www.tulipstravel.com/airpass/lufthansaeurope.htm

If you need a tool to help you figure out mileage (and know the airport codes - LHR, SOF, etc.) use the wonderful Great Circle Mapper tool at http://gc.kls2.com/

Check if the EuropebyAir plan covers your cities, also note the names of the carriers and their connectability. One other factor on the airpasses is you earn mileage on your FF program if that matters.