Refine an itinerary through Eastern Europe

Question

Short version: Which places could we add extra days to (excluding cities before the 13th, because of the match in Lviv)?

We are especially interested in things that are not the typical thing to do or that it is hard to find information about online.

Long version: We are a group of 6 that are planning a road trip from June 9th to July 1st next summer and would greatly appreciate some ideas on what to see and what to do at the specific places. We have searched a bit on sites like Tripadvisor and found interesting things to do in some of the places, but are looking for more! Especially things that are not easy to find/common.

The plan right now is:

• June 9 - Norway to Stockholm
• June 10 - Stockholm to Tallinn (by ferry)
• June 11 - Tallinn to Riga
• June 12 - Riga to Vilnius
• June 13 - Vilnius to Lviv (watching the UEFA EURO match)
• June 14 - Lviv
• June 15 - Lviv to Krakow
• June 16 - Krakow to Bratislava
• June 17 - Bratislava to Budapest
• June 18 - Budapest
• June 19 - Budapest to Zagreb
• June 20 - Zagreb to Ljubljana
• June 21 - Ljubljana
• June 22 - Ljubljana to Salsburg
• June 23 - Salsburg to Praha
• June 24 - Praha

• June 25 to 27 is open for ideas

• June 28 - Praha/Other City to Werchter, Belgium (Music Festival)

• June 29 to July 1 - Werchter

Then home in one way or another. The main goal is to have fun and the second goal is to cross off the maximum amount of countries.

June 25th to June 27th is open and some of the cities after the 13th can be added extra days. Which cities do you propose? Or do you propose a different route between Lviv and Werchter entirely?

Answer 1

• The Vilnius - Lviv leg is quite long: 11 hours according to ViaMichelin. It could be worth splitting it and stop in Poland. Two options come to my mind: Lublin and Białystok. Lublin is a rather cosy city. I cannot comment on Białystok.

• You can plan one complete day in Krakow. It's worth it. Besides, you can also take the opportunity to visit the Wieliczka salt mines or the Auschwitz KZ.

• If you are a keen driver, you can take the Grossglockner High Alpine Road when driving from Ljubljana to Salzburg. It is a little detour, but a really scenic drive.

• The Prag - Werchter leg could be split as well. I would for instance drive into central Germany and then to Werchter. Two nice cities that are conveniently located along this itinerary are Erfut and Leipzig.

Your trip focuses exclusively on cities. If you want to escape the cities, there are several options:

• When traveling from Krakow to Bratislava you can plan a stopover in the Tatra mountains.

• Ljubljana and Zagreb are not that far from the Mediterranean. If you want to spend a couple of hours or a day on the Sea, you could break the Zagreb - Ljubljana leg to fit that into your plan.

• Another possibility to enjoy some nature would be to break the Ljubljana - Salzburg leg and stop in the Sloveninan mountains or in Carinthia.

Answer 2

I checked all your routes and all of them seem reasonable long for a day trip (if you´re into driving). Probably the leg Vilnius -> Lviv can get a bit long, because without a transit visa and head-aching regulations, you can just drive into Belarus. So you have to drive via Poland.

Tallinn -> Riga (310 km, 4.5 hours)

Riga -> Vilnius (290 km, 3.5 hours)

Vilnius -> Lviv (770 km, 12 hours)

Lviv -> Krakow (320 km, 5 hours)

Krakow -> Bratislava (460 km, 5 hours)

Bratislava -> Budapest (200 km, 2 hours)

Budapest -> Zagreb (350km, 3.5 hours)

Zagreb -> Ljubliana (149 km, 2 hours)

Ljubliana -> Salzburg (300km, 3 hours)

Salzburg -> Prague (380 km, 5 hours)

I visited all of this cities by myself expect Lviv and I think they all are worth a visit, just a few hints what would be other interesting cities on the route:

In Poland you could also visit Danzig or Warsaw. Currently whole Poland is one big construction site (as a Poland explained us this summer). This means there is almost no highway. But especially for the Euro2012 they´re currently building a lot of new streets. Then you should be able to travel faster there.

In my opinion, Bratislava is not really that interesting, but if you want to collect as many countries and cities as possible, it is defintively worth a visit. And it is really cheap there. But I would think about going to Vienna too. It is only one hour drive from Bratislava and immo way more interesting than Salzburg (the other Austrian city you´re going to visit).

Another interesting city on the way between Ljubliana and Prague is Graz. Maybe you could consider to visit it too.

Concerning the days after Prague. I would either visit the villages around Prague like for example Kutna Hora or start heading towards Belgian already and stop in Dresden, Leipzig, or Nurnberg. They all are very nice and interesting cities.

I´m not sure if you´re living in Belgium, but if not, Liege, could also be worth a stop.

Generally, your tour sounds really great to me, but it is very focused on driving and not sightseeing. If this is your main goal it is really great, but you will also miss quite a lot of things. Just to mention Krakow, you won´t have time to visit for example Auschwitz or the really famous Wieliczka Salt Mines.