I was so lucky! I had gorgeous weather when there, during the White Nights, no less! :-)

And I was able to spend a half day in the Russian Museum, with its wonderful collection of icons and other Russian art. WELL worth seeing.

If you can afford a day in Budapest.... Add it. When friends visit, three full days covers the city. There are also some nice trips out of the city.

The city is torn apart right now, but the construction will be done soon, and it is going to be fantastic. The area near ferenciek ter is very nice and is one of the most renovated ( that seems to be the area of the above apartment). I am not sure how price sensitive you are, but Budapest can be very inexpensive with a wide range of hotels, bed and breakfasts, and apartments. It is an opulent city though quite poor.

I like Bratislava. And if you do bike, that is how I would spend the day. This is Denver style biking.... Long, flat, dedicated trails that go forever (unlike Denver, dotted with little beer huts). If that isn't your thing, we will come up with something else. When you get to that part of the trip, just tell me your interests and I will make some suggestions.

Les, I will weigh in on the exit strategy. My daughter is in Boulder at the University of Colorado so we fly to Denver quite a bit ( we decided to sell our home a year ago, but lived ourselves in Evergreen). We tend to take the BA flight thru Heathrow. From where you end, the option of going back to Venice is perfect, and Venice to Denver is easy. Or you could ferry straight across from Dubrovnik and train to Rome. In either scenario, Denver is one hop away.

Dubrovnik to Denver is not clean, and quite expensive.

For parts of this trip (including around Bratislava and Budapest), you could easily drop the car and use trains. Your choice. We have lived here 2 1/2 years and never used a car. ( though for the Slovenia and Croatia parts of the trip, a car is nice).

Julie,

Please refer to my last itinerary (several posts earlier, on Jan 12):

For Budapest, you said 3 full days covers the city. We've currently allotted 4 nights, which gives us 3 full days, plus half days on arrival and departure.
When you said "If you can afford a day in Budapest.... Add it.", did you mean in addition to the 3 full days?

As for Bratislava, we are interested in exploring the city rather than the environs (other than what we might see and explore on the drive to and from the city). We aren't bikers, although we do own 4 scooters with which we explore the mountains around are home - including Evergreen (we live against the foothills near Chatfield Reservoir, so 5 minutes puts us into the mountains).

I think we'll stick to our current exit strategy - drive back to Warsaw (via a slightly different route to avoid too much retracing of our steps) and leave from there. This has a couple of major financial benefits - we avoid the significant rental car drop-off fee, and the Icelandic flights (which we can get from Warsaw) are generally cheaper than those of the other major airlines. Flying back from Venice as you suggest would add thousands to the cost of the trip, and provide nothing in the way of a new experience (been there, done that).

kja,
We've almost finalized planning the Baltic/Russian part of our trip. We're in the process of modifying the agenda proposed by our travel agent, and have only to agree on hotels and means of transportation between the cities, which we should be able to do when we speak with him tomorrow. We will be allowing 6 full days (7 nights) to see St. Petersburg, and I think our time will be well spent.

Good deal on the exit strategy. If you found one that works, go for it. The Icelandic Air flight started since I moved. Note to self to look at an Iceland layover when we go to Denver in August!

Four full days in Budapest can be easily consumed. We just cover the city in 3 full days. Four will let you slow the pace and work in a spot outside the city.

I like Bratislava. We lived there for over a year when we left Colorado. The old town is fairly small, charming. It has a wonderful classical music hall, The Reduta. The larger city has a bit to see (just around Old Town). It erodes to a dreary communist style city quickly. You have a long trip. Bratislava will be a nice spot to regroup.

I will wait patiently while you plan the start of the trip (I keep interrupting).

Julie,
If I didn't want to be "interrupted" by knowledgeable forum members, I wouldn't have posted here. Thank you for contributing.

Hi Les, I do not know if you are a reader, but I cannot help recommending a book I just bought 2nd hand:
'Montenegro' by Starling Lawrence, 1997, Penguin.
It is beautifully written and describes that area so well.
Happy planning!

Thanks for the recommendation, Kovsie. I'll see if I can get it at the library.
We've only allowed for a day trip to Kotor from Dubrovnik, so we won't actually get to see much of Montenegro. It would be nice if the rental company would allow us to drive their car to Montenegro, but that's not the case.

My reading recs for the Balkans:

Robert Kaplan: "Balkan Ghosts"
Rebecca West: "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon"

The bus ride between Kotor and Dubrovnik is quite scenic.

Hello, again.

Well, much progress has been made.
Most importantly, we decided to shorten the trip slightly, in part because of logistics, but mostly because a 7 week trip is longer than we'd prefer. We felt that the southern part of the itinerary was best left for another trip. We did, however, add Dresden to our itinerary. And we've booked our flights (from Denver to Helsinki, and return from Warsaw).

So the latest, greatest,and FINAL (because the flights are already booked) itinerary is as follows:

Fly from Denver to Helsinki
(3 nights in Helsinki);
Travel to St. Petersburg (Allegro Train)
(7 nights in St.Petersburg);
Travel to Tallinn (Russian Railways Train)
(2 nights in Tallinn);
Travel to Riga (Luxury Bus)
(2 nights in Riga);
Travel to Vilnius (Luxury Bus)
(2 nights in Vilnius);
Travel to Warsaw (Plane)
(3 nights in Warsaw);
Drive to Wroclaw
(1 night in Wroclaw);
Drive to Dresden
(2 nights in Dresden);
Drive to Prague
(4 nights in Prague);
Drive to Bratislava
(2 nights in Bratislava);
Drive to Budapest
(4 nights in Budapest);
Drive to Zilina
(1 night in Zilina);
Drive to Krakow
(3 nights in Krakow);
Drive to Warsaw
(1 night in Warsaw)
Fly from Warsaw to Denver

Everything on the first part of the trip (Helsinki to Warsaw) is already booked. Because of the difficulty of driving between Russia and the Baltic countries (which would have entailed switching cars multiple times), we enlisted the help of a travel agent to book our hotels (we chose the hotels) and transportation between cities.

Once in Warsaw, we'll pick up a car and complete the itinerary on our own. Aside from the return flight to Denver, and the car reservation (yet to be made), nothing else will be pre-determined. We'll see how it goes.

I have one other question (and who knows how many more to come?):
We added one night in Zilina. Zilina was chosen because it was conveniently located to break up the long drive between Budapest and Krakow. I know little about the town, or if there might be someplace more interesting to stop enroute, and would like your advice on this point.

Now that we're beyond the initial planning stage, hopefully it'll all be downhill from here (I mean that in a GOOD way).

Should be interesting! Any chance of shifting one night in Warsaw to Krakow?

I think you are way short-changing Riga, but too late now, I guess.

Between Budapest and Krakow I would recommend Levoca but it may be a bit out of the way. Or Stary Smokovec, but that's really only worthwhile if you have time to hike a bit.

I have a girlfriend from Zilina... She always describes it as quite lovely (in a Slovak way, no doubt). I think you are going the Bratislava way... Which I think may be more highway. On that route you could look at Trencin or Piestany (a famous spa town, nice if you have time to do a spa thing).

I also think you could go right up the center... Without looking at a map, we did consider Levoca when we went from Budapest to Krakow. At the time we did this, I could not find a hotel which would respond to my email. I now realize eastern Slovakia is not a haven for English speakers. If you need help on Slovak, please come back to me.

We hiked above Stary Smokovec. The Tatras are lovely... A thimble vs. Colorado, and the hiking not nearly as nice. Poprad has some nice areas, but is likely too big and a pain to deal with.

Ok ... I broke down and looked at a map (Gesh, that would have helped sooner)... I also think Banska Bystrica is a nice option. This route is much more scenic than the west. The roads are a snap vs. mountain roads in Colorado.

Glad to see you guys (generic, no gender implied) are still with me.

kja, are you suggesting that I limit Warsaw to 2 nights and Krakow to 4 nights? I still have the freedom to make that change, but only until I reserve my car (which will be for the day I leave Warsaw). However, only 2 days in Warsaw doesn't sound like enough time for a major city. We have a guide book for Poland, and we'll re-think that plan. But my gut tells me that we should keep the 3 days in Warsaw. Since the remainder of the trip is loose, we'll always have the option option of re-arranging the schedule to add a day to Krakow if we find that we can shave a day off one of the other cities (we'll know when we get there if we can or want to do that), or extend the driving time on one day to eliminate an overnight.

thursdaysd, alas, that part of the trip is locked in, so adding time in Riga won't be possible. For what it's worth, we did solicit opinions from our travel agent (actual, from several travel agents within the agency), and look through the guide books for Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, and the consensus was to split the time evenly between the three.
An initial check of driving times shows that Levoca would be just as convenient for an overnight as Zilina. We'll have to do a little homework to see which town would be more interesting.

Julie, we're going to Bratislava on the way to Budapest, not on the way to Krakow. So on the way to Krakow, we will basically head north through Slovakia, with the option to overnight in Zilina or Levoca (or any other town that looks interesting); we're just trying to split the trip to limit our driving time each day.
As for the scarcity of English speakers, if we find a place we'd like to stay, we've generally had success with face-to-face communication (which trumps written communication every time), even when we don't speak the language. I hope that will also be the case on this trip.
Thank you for your offer to help; don't be surprised if we take you up on that during the trip. We got a lot of good advice real-time on this forum during our Greece/Turkey trip, and hope to do the same this time.

"kja, are you suggesting that I limit Warsaw to 2 nights and Krakow to 4 nights?"

Yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting. You keep telling us that your time in any given city includes time to either side of the nights you specify, and I am suggesting that 2 days (even if that means one full day and two half days) is probably sufficient for Warsaw if it gives you an extra day in Krakow. You might even be able to see the best of what Warsaw offers in a day or day-and-a-half.

Warsaw was almost completely destroyed during WWII, so IMO, there just aren't that many things worth seeing, at least in comparison to what you would have to skip elsewhere to make the time to see them. The "Old Town" was reconstructed to match what it was during its height, and I commend the efforts of the city's residents to make that happen, but it doesn't take long to see. The old Jewish quarter might be worth a visit, but it is now essentially a residential area with just a few scattered (if nonetheless moving) testaments to the Jewish Ghetto Uprising, some of which you might not even recognize unless you have a very good guide book with you. The John Paul II Collection (aka Carroll-Porczyński Collection) is also well worth seeing, but it's small and won't take that much time, particularly because so many of its pieces are in desperate need of restoration. I found other enjoyable things to see in the free time I had before/after some business obligations -- some gardens, parks, a market area, another museum, a few churches -- but not that much and most of these things took very little time. In fairness, I haven't been there since 1995, so maybe things have changed....

In contrast, Krakow was not damaged during WWII and has an extraordinary wealth of sites worthy of exploration. Although it depends on what you want to see and experience, I think 3 days is close to a minimum for Krakow, particularly if you are considering a visit to Auschwitz/Birkenau.

Just my opinion....

OK Les.. I will trust you... I thought the fastest way to drive to Zilina was to go up thru Bratislava (more highways).. But I might be wrong. I haven't driven here in over 2 years.

Acting works OK in Slovakia... sometimes. People most always try to hang me, so not to worry.

I am in entire agreement with kja about Warsaw - big disappointment (and I was there in 2004). The "old town" is not just small, but the no-doubt-praiseworthy reconstruction has left every building looking the same age. To my (European) eyes it looks totally fake. Think Epcot.

WRT sleeping in Levoca, I highly recommend http://www.uleva.sk/english.html - bearing in mnd I was there in 2006 and it has since upgraded from a pension to a hotel by adding a restaurant. See my website linked above for more.

kja and thursdaysd,

You're very persuasive. As you suggest, we have taken a night from Warsaw and added it to Krakow. That way, if it turns out that we find Warsaw to be more interesting than you think we will, we'll have the option to go back a day earlier at the end of the trip to see it more thoroughly.

thursdaysd, if it turns out that we overnight in Levoca (a decision that has yet to be made), the hotel that you recommend looks very nice. Thank you.

Julie, you are not wrong; the fastest way to Zilina from Budapest is back through Bratislava. However, the driving time is only marginally faster than heading straight north, which has the advantage of allowing us to see a new part of the country, and enabling us to opt for Levoca (as I said above, a decision that has yet to be made) without adding a lot of time to the trip.

FYI, here are the driving times to Zilina from Budapest (from the Michelin site):

Via Bratislava: 4 hours 04 minutes
Via E571: 4 hours 27 minutes
Via E77, 65: 4 hours 25 minutes.

So any route we choose will allow for a leisurely driving day.

I don't think you'll regret shifting a day from Warsaw to Krakow, and as you say, you will have the opportunity to add it back in if you think it worth doing. Let us know how it works out for you!

OK.. we are together now. The drive from Budapest to Zilina thru Bratislava would be fairly dismal.

The town of Banská Bystrica appeared cute. There is a very nice (traditional, cheap) restaurant just after town (heading north). I do not know the name - but it would stand out, I think. We had a good dinner there with our Slovak friends - it is their stopping off point for a break on the way from Bratislava to the High Tatras. Animal skins, tradition things which look touristy but just happen to be traditional.

Levoca didn't do a lot for me (frankly, no small Slovak towns ever did too much for me - as much as we love the country). We spent much of that day watching a trio of police officers track an apparently rabid fox through down town (which somehow just seemed to fit the town's yesteryear ambiance).

A worthwhile stop is the restored village of Vlkolinec. It may be a UNESCO site - not a place you can stay. Very interesting - a wee bit of a hike and enough to spend perhaps an hour in nice weather.

I have written a bit about rural Slovakia from our time living there. If you are interested, email me and I'll drop you a link. (my email is on my fodors profile).

One of our funnier memories was sitting outside in the village of Banská Štiavnica as the church bells started to peel for Sunday service. The song was "You took a fine time to leave me Lucille". My husband and I still laugh when we think of that....

Some of the villages in this area (Banská Štiavnica being one of them) have unreal "Stations of the Cross". They are outdoors and placed along hiking trails - sometimes leading up to a mountain top church. Keep your eyes peeled as you are driving.

Correction, no need to email. My actual website is on my profile. I wrote about Bratislava and Slovakia under "home" and "travel".... In any event, if you get bored and want to check it out...

Julie,

Thank you for the information.

I looked up Banská Bystrica - it looks like a good spot to stay for the night - only about 3 hours out of Budapest, which will leave us with a short 4 hour drive into Krakow the next day (plus the time that we'll certainly want to spend in Vlkolinec on the way).

It's a good thing I'm writing the names of these towns, rather than trying to pronounce them!

I also took a quick look at your web site - very informative and nicely organized. I'll have to devote some serious time to studying it - lots of good info there.

Off Topic): From your blog, I get the impression that you're not as thrilled with Hong Kong as I am. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. I could live there (if I could afford it) and be very happy. But I'm a city guy (born and raised in Brooklyn), and exploring cities is our favorite pastime when traveling. Looking forward to reading about the rest of your travels. We, too, were expats, living near Meersburg (on Lake Constance in Germany) for nearly 5 years, and we're avid travelers (40 countries on 5 continents, and counting). Life is good!

Good deal Les... Glad to help...

I grew up on the Jersey shore (Manasquan)... We plan to some day come back and live in Philly. I just like my cities with an extra helping of grunge. We do love Budapest.

Enjoy a wonderful trip (will be interesting to see how a Brooklyn native likes rural Slovakia)...

Hello, again.

I've started a new topic on this forum, "Looking for recommendations for trip insurance."

If any of you following this thread have any recommendations, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Please post on the new thread; this one is getting rather long, and I'd like to keep it focused on my trip.

Thanks.

Hi.

Well, things have changed (it's a dynamic world, isn't it?).
Thanks to Vladimir Putin, a travel advisary by my government, and the advice of the trip insurance company and my travel agent, we've decided to give St. Petersburg a pass, and replace it with a stay in Stockholm.

We've reworked the itinerary to incorporate those changes; it now looks like this:

Fly from Denver to Helsinki
(4 nights in Helsinki);
Travel to Stockholm (Plane)
(5 nights in Stockholm);
Travel to Tallinn (Plane)
(2 nights in Tallinn);
Travel to Riga (Luxury Bus)
(3 nights in Riga);
Travel to Vilnius (Luxury Bus)
(2 nights in Vilnius);
Travel to Warsaw (Plane)
(2 nights in Warsaw);
Drive to Wroclaw
(1 night in Wroclaw);
Drive to Dresden
(2 nights in Dresden);
Drive to Prague
(4 nights in Prague);
Drive to Bratislava
(2 nights in Bratislava);
Drive to Budapest
(4 nights in Budapest);
Drive to Zilina (or someplace else?)
(1 night in Zilina);
Drive to Krakow
(4 nights in Krakow);
Drive to Warsaw
(1 night in Warsaw)
Fly from Warsaw to Denver


As you can see, we were also able to add an extra night in Helsinki and Riga. We would have preferred to fly into Stockholm first, but Lufthansa wanted a small fortune to change the flights.

I'm now in pursuit of recommendations for a nice hotel in Stockholm (which Ill ask for in a separate post in the Sweden forum, to avoid making this thread any longer than necessary).

I sincerely hope this will be the last change to the itinerary, but I might have said that before. Oh, well!

Which country is that??? Even the US government, which is usually the most paranoid around, doesn't have a travel warning for St. Petersburg. For heaven's sake, no one is going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, and it is at the other end of the country. Now, if you want to boycott Russia because you disapprove of Putin's behaviour, that is one thing, but this is the second post I've seen today from someone who is cancelling St. Petersburg because of the situation in Ukraine, and it makes zero sense to me. (But more time in Riga is cerainly a good thing!)

And you're not going until September???

4 nights might be a bit much in Helsinki. I spent 2 full days there, and thoroughly enjoyed myself, but from what I read, many people have though far less sufficient. Still, you'll be recovering from jet lag and if you go prepared for a very leisurely first few days -- or with a good idea of the things you want to do -- I can imagine that it would be lovely.

Stockholm is lovely.

Enjoy!

thursdaysd, the United States government has issued a Travel Advisary (not a warning) for Ukraine. I have spoken at length with a couple of trip insurance representatives (one that represents Trip Insured, recommended by my travel agent, and one who works for Insure My Trip, which represents many insurance companies). I have explained to them that this was an advisary, not a warning, and that I* was not going to Ukraine.
After reading the fine print, they both (independently) stated that I would not be covered if I booked the trip to Russia while the advisery was in effect, even if it was later lifted. And if I went to St. Petersburg, none of the remainder of the trip would be covered, either. Consider, also, that the way things are going, there's a good chance that we would be unable to get Russian visas (which we can't even apply for until 45 days before we're going to be there, so we wouldn't know until then), given the retaliation that Putin is likely to put into effect. Also, our travel agent recommended against going there, and was agreeable to modifying the itinerary (even though we've already paid them).
A perfect storm, wouldn't you say?

kja, we're old and slow, which is why we plan long trips with ample time built in. And maybe we're giving Helsinki too much credit, but we love exploring cities on foot, and our feet are not as happy as they once were.

So the insurance company won't cover you for travel to country A because of a travel advisory for country B? Crazy... At least it explains why I couldn't find the travel advisory - I was looking at Russia. I don't take out that kind of insurance, so if it were my trip it would only be the visa that might be an issue, and that hadn't even occurred to me. I doubt Putin is going to do anything that would cost Russia income, and I expect this to be over well before you would be applying for the visa.

I'm all in favor of having a plan B - and C or even D - but it seemed awfully early to be switching to it. Anyway, seems to be a pretty good plan B.

thursdaysd, I'm glad that you think Putin is that reasonable. Just be happy you're not one of those Americans that was waiting to adopt a Russian child.
As for insurance, we don't generally take it to cover expenses that we haven't spent or are refundable (in fact, we didn't have any insurance for our 7-week trip to Turkey and Greece, because we didn't outlay any money in advance; we booked hotels in real-time, and we got our flights using my frequent flyer miles). However, between our flights and the part of the trip involving a travel agent (only the first 2-1/2 weeks of a 6 week trip), we're in for enough non-refundable bucks to make the insurance a worthwhile investment.

Plan B gives us a measure of

Sorry, I guess I hit the submit button before I finished.
What I was in the middle of trying to say when I so rudely interrupted myself (you'd be surprised how often that happens) is that Plan B gives us a measure of certainty and peace of mind, and a whole lot less to worry about over the next few months. Plan A (the parts we omitted) didn't disappear, it's just hiding in the shadows, waiting to be resurrected at a later date.

Hey Les... It's your vacation. Whatever gives you peace of mind, I would select. Personally, I do not go on vacation to increase my stress level. It still looks like a great trip.

OK, got my flights, got my hotels, got my itinerary booked. It's time to move on to the next phase of my planning - reserving a car for the 2nd part of the trip.

I could use your suggestions for a reliable car rental company (personal experience preferred). I'd also prefer to use a company that's based in the U.S., but this isn't mandatory.

I should point out that some companies (Budget comes immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are others) will not rent to me (in Poland) because I'm too old (maximum age to rent from them is 70, and I'll be 72 at the time of rental).

Looking forward yet again to your recommendations.

You might look into gemut.com -- I've had great experiences with them. It isn't a rental car company, its a small company that arranges rentals, based in (maybe) Oregon (?), with 24-hour English-speaking assistance on a toll-free line. I've never found lower rates with any company (even considering discount options I have through several memberships) and the one time I needed assistance with a car I had rented through them while in Europe, they were incredibly helpful.

kja,

Thanks for that info. I have contacted them (online) and requested a quote. I'll also contact them by phone tomorrow.

Let me know if you ever write a guide book - I'll be your first customer!

LOL! It seems to me that most of what I've said to you is already in widely available guidebooks. Nonetheless, I'm glad that you think I've been helpful. I'll remind you of that when you came back with horror stories. ;-)

IME, gemut sometimes takes a few days to respond to inquiries -- it's a very small firm, so be patient!

And BTW, I didn't mean to suggest that you WILL have horror stories! Quite in contrast, I trust that you will have a great time.

kja, I called Gemut, left a voice mail. While I was waiting for a call back, I did some searching, found a good rate at Auto Europe, and I placed a hold on the car, since their sale ends Sunday (and I have the possibility to cancel at any time).

When Gemut returned my call (I spoke with Andy Bestor, very helpful gent,) it turned out that they actually handle the rental through Auto Europe (same exact car, very slightly higher rate), and that I could take care of any issues that might occur during my trip through Auto Europe.

So I kept the booking through Auto Europe.

Thanks again for your help.