BootsnAll Travel Community

Hello --- I'm in Budapest for work right now and will have about four days afterward for free time. I arrived a day early and caught some of the big sights here.

My question: What next? Things I'm looking for (don't need all of these, just things I like):
- Don't necessarily want to do the whole Museum thing, more into off the beaten path stuff
- Potentially a great beach/relaxation time
- Not afraid of taking train/bus to leave

People have mentioned Bratislava, Prague, Vienna, Slovenia etc. Just wanted to see if anyone had a suggestion. I would love to fly to Istanbul, but flights are pretty expensive.

Thanks!

Slovenia is a pretty nice place if you're looking for some R & R. I believe Ljubljana is an 8-10 hour train ride from Budapest. It's a nice, fairly undiscovered place (as far as tourists go) with a thriving cafe culture in a quaint Old Town with unique architecture.

If you're looking for an outdoors-y place, Lake Bled is beautiful- almost out of a fairytale (hence, a few more tourists.) It gives you plenty of opportunity to take in the scenery through hikes, canoes, etc.

As for other nearby countries, I would also highly recommend Czech Republic (Prague, Cesky Krumlov) and Poland (Krakow.)

Good luck-

I loved both Prague and Vienna. I think you'd be good with either one of them. I'll warn you I do like the museum thing, though I spent a couple afternoons hanging out in a park in Vienna playing soccer with some people.

You have LOTS of excellent options. Istanbul can probably be done cheaper later in life, out of London or Paris or something. And, well, Budapest is not really a good place to start looking for great beaches.

Since you wanted "off the beaten path" options, here are a couple of them:

You could take the train straight north into Slovakia and spend a couple of days in the mountains on the border to Poland. That's a great place to relax through some hiking, and you can stop in Bratislava on your way back to Budapest to go home. Or you could continue to Krakow in Poland and see a nice old town and an anything but nice Auschwitz.

OR you could head into Romania. Cluj-Napoca is an interesting place, and you can continue to Brasov and take daytrips to hike in the Transylvanian mountains and go see a couple of old castles, including "The Dracula Castle". Allow for some heavy delays on the trains of Romania, though!

DO check the weather forecast before you go anywhere, though. Different weather may mean a huge difference in how good your trips to these places will be.

I did a trip through Eastern Europe, including Budapest, Transylvania and the Polish/Slovaki border a couple of years ago, so you can see what these places looked like to me at http://www.pvv.org/~bct/blokka/

Happy trails!

Bjørn
http://bjornfree.com/

I'd say Vienna. Really close and now that the Euro is finished, you can enjoy the real Vienna and not the sports fans filled one.

quote:

OR you could head into Romania. Cluj-Napoca is an interesting place, and you can continue to Brasov and take daytrips to hike in the Transylvanian mountains and go see a couple of old castles, including "The Dracula Castle". Allow for some heavy delays on the trains of Romania, though!

...especially now that the temperatures are high (35 C) and there have been a lot of delays due to the heat (on the route to Brasov especially). Otherwise trains run really smoothly

yes, go to vienna.

Vienna and Bratislava would be good options. They're not that far either. Try to go to Bratislava, as you'll be able to dispel the myths made popular by the movie Eurotrip if you've ever seen that.

I just returned from that part of the world. I visited Prague, Krakow, Eger and Budapest. My favorite of the trip is Krakow. It's an easy overnight train ride from Budapest. Awesome Jazz scene there if you're into that.