difficult itinerary

[GoJoel]

I've been planning this trip to Europe for a few months now, and am just now sort of becoming interested in central/eastern Europe. My problem is, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to fit a couple cities into my itinerary so I'm looking for some help. Towards the middle of my trip, my plan looks like this:

Italy --> Innsbruck
Innsbruck --> Vienna
Vienna --> Prague
Prague --> Germany (either Berlin or Munich first, depending on where I decide to go next)

Lately I've been reading about Croatia, Poland, and have added Budapest to my route. How could I fit at least Krakow and Budapest into my route? The cities would still be (not necessarily in this order):

Innsbruck
Vienna
Budapest
Krakow
Prague
Germany

If I added Zagreb for sure, I might try to do something like go from Venice in Italy to Ljubljana, then to Zagreb and up towards Budapest. The problem here is I'd have to backtract to either Innsbruck and Vienna (if I went ahead up to Prague) or get back to Prague somehow later. The other problem is that it seems tough to get from Budapest to Krakow even though they are relatively close (Slovakia apparently doesn't have many train routes going through).

My number one itinerary would be the one I have listed, with Budapest and Krakow, as Zagreb would be an extra, but it would definitly take plenty of forethought if I wanted to add it. Hope I haven't been to overwhelming, but if so you can imagine how I'm feeling! Thanks!

[madamtrashheap]

GoJoel, is this the same trip as the one visiting Puglia? If so, remember that adding Croatia will alter the Greece-Italy route so look at going Italy-Croatia (by ferry or by bus if from Venice).

As for the above cities, maybe I'm missing something, but you could look at going Ljubljana-Zagreb-Budapest-Bratislava-Vienna-Innsbruck (if you still include it)-Munich then Prague (on the nighttrain at 22.07 from Munich)-Krakow-Berlin. I know there are issues with trains, so you might have to re-jig the order or look at leaving some cities out if they cause too much hassle.

If you don't do Zagreb, then you could go straight from Ljubljana to Budapest, then on to Vienna, Prague, Berlin (with a side-stop in Dresden). Or, you might have to skip Ljubljana (unfortunately) and go Zagreb-Budapest (about 6hrs by train) instead. This is a smaller version of the cities you've listed, but I think you'll run into trouble with Budapest as far as choice of destinations goes. I know there's another post about this from a few months ago (sometime in 2006) I just can't find it at the mo. Maybe one of the other members will chime in with it or other suggestions. Or, have a look at flights from Budapest to Prague (skipping Bratislava - even though I just threw that in) on www.flycheapo.com as an alternative.

You've probably found it already, but if not use Elvira for the Hungarian Trains info: www.elvira.hu/elvira.dll/index?ed=07.02.27&i=BUDAPEST&e=Ljubljana&v=&mikor=1&d=&isz=1&u=40&x=93&y=23&b=back to see if you get any better answers.

Hope that gives you a little help.

[herrbert]

Hi GoJoel,

If you would have Venice as a last stop in Italy, I would go to Trieste from there, and on to Ljubljana. (You can go directly to Ljubljana, but you could also consider a visit, to Trieste).

From Ljubljana, you can make a half circle swooping up, Zagreb, (stop in Balaton?), Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Innsbruck, Munich. From here to Prague (if you have time, you could consider going via Salzburg and Cesky Krumlov), from Prague to Berlin. In Berlin you can take a flight to Krakow, with Easyjet.

From Krakow, there are plenty of options to fly to other places, you can check Easyjet, Ryanair, SkyEurope, Centralwings, and even Norwegian (if you like to go to Norway), Germanwings (for Germany), Sterling (for Copenhagen). Well you get the picture, choices enough.

[GoJoel]

Thanks for the help, guys. My main thing was trying to avoid zigzagging and backtracking, but I think it's inevitable. I guess a couple of the cities are easily accessed so going backwards doesn't waste too much time. I'll keep working on it!