European vacations

I first travelled to Chisinau (Kishinev) in March 2000 and was truly surprised by how much I liked this city after living in Prague(one of the most architecturally significant cities in the world) for 5 years and having travelled in all the former communist cities in East Europe from Albania to Ukraine. Chisinau is an interesting mix of predominately Romanian and Russian which makes for a nice mixture of a Slavic and Latin cultures. Everyone speaks Russian here but the government passed a law after the breakup of the Soviet Union that Romanian would be the native language and all contract/government documents would only be in Romanian. In turn many documents are in both Russian and Romanian while English is widely studied here with the wide use of the internet here being part of this process of 3 languages being used here.

We went to Budapest with Vienna Sight Seeing Tour (http://www.viennasightseeingtours.com), and to Prague with Royal Tour.

We were very disappointed with Vienna Sight-Seeing Tour. There were only 7 of us in the tour. The tour was actually done by Euro Bus company. The bus company uses the same bus for the tour as well as for transporting bus passengers from Vienna to Budapest. The bus had to make a detour to Vienna airport to pick up more passengers.

Upon arriving Budapest, the bus made a detour to Budapest Euro Bus terminal to drop them off.

At first, Krakow seemed like the dream stop on our Eastern European vacation. It’s a beautiful, old city surrounded by beautiful countryside; it’s dirt cheap; the food is good & plentiful (did I mention dirt cheap?)

While the churches seem largely to have been picked clean of valuables during various occupations, they’re in good condition and lovely to look at. The main square is packed full of funky shops and great for people-watching. Our hotel, a "luxury" abode by Polish standards in 1991 and pretty darned comfortable by this frugal traveler’s yardstick, was clean and comfortable. It housed a very good restaurant where I gorged myself on white borscht every night (I’m still looking for a recipe, if anyone’s got one) and housed the town’s most happening nightclub, a 1970s-type disco complete with lit-up dance floor and pulsing, 120-beats-per-minute dance tunes.

My roommate from college and I visited Budapest in July 1998 for a few days during a 3-week whirlwind tour of Europe. Budapest wasn’t originally part of our itinerary, but a friend convinced us to go, and I’m glad we did.

We stayed at the Hotel Ernitus, formerly known as the Marco Polo Youth Hostel. $17/night. Mind you, we were on a budget. There were hardly any other guests, and the rooms were very clean. Breakfast was amazing: OJ, coffee, tea, bread, salami, cheese, jam, and cereal.

Prague is a terrific walking tour city, with cultural and historical references around every corner. Literally. The place is so chock-full of delight, you can barely avoid learning something.

I went in late September, when the weather was chilly, but not icy. The trees and grass were still green, and we had a terrific time exploring. And though you could spend days at the big historical spots (the King’s Walk, the churches, the castle, the Jewish Museums…) here’s my "don’t miss" list:

After writing my first posting on travelling in Eastern Europe I received some constructive criticism, which made me think about writing more elaborate descriptions. First, please understand, that I will not describe the places to see, except maybe if I am writing about Ukraine, or of something is just outstanding and is worth seeing. Instead, I will try to look at the little peculiarities of traveling in Eastern Europe and maybe provide more information. And if you want to find out some more, please feel free to post any comment to this opinion, since all the comments are forwarded to me directly.

“Hello this is XXX speaking, I am the captain of your train, and we will be departing shortly. We will be cruising at an altitude of approximately zero feet, and our scheduled arrival time in Morden is 3:15pm. The temperature in Morden is approximately 15 degrees Celsius, and Morden is in the same time zone as Mill Hill East, so there’s no need to adjust your watches”. Driver Northern Line

We spent a few months living in Basel with our 2 boys (4 1/2 and 2 years old) so finding things to do for them was critical to keep them from going ‘cabin crazy.’ In this review I’ll focus on what the kids liked to do.

Basel is on the border with France and Germany and serviced by the Basel (or Bale) airport. Population is about 220,000 who speak Swiss-German with a Basel Dialect thrown in (including French words too). Basel is divided into Grossbasel (greater Basel) and Kleinbasel (little Basel) by the Rhine river.

Review Topic: Overview

Prague is one of those places you may not have on your list of cities to visit when you travel to Europe, but by all means consider it! It’s a city you will not likely soon forget. The main drag from the train station is alive with Westernized fast food joints, vendors, tourist, and more tourists. It’s almost as if when they opened the republic to international commerce, they went overboard. You’ll hear more English spoken on this main street than you will most anywhere else in Europe. Get off the main drag and see Prague by foot. You could easily afford to rent a car in this city since prices are still low compared to other destinations. But, walking Prague is like walking in a dream. The steet layout is erratic and crazy, and you really, really need a city map to keep from becoming lost and disoriented. As I understand it, the twisty, turny layout was designed on purpose to confuse marrauding attackers. Well, even armed with a detailed map, I found myself getting lost and backtracking. But, that’s ok too since all of Prague is eye candy.

I didn’t have a round-trip ticket the last time I came home from Europe, so when it came time to book a flight back to States, I thought I would do something a little “financially adventurous” (what a euphemism!) and stop in Iceland on the way. On every trip I had taken to Europe, I had sat there on those boring transatlantic flights feeling like toothpaste and looked off longingly into the star-clad northern distance, imagining a magical island sitting there under the wing-tip called Iceland. Yet I had never seriously considered going there.