I'm going to England for most of June and I'll have a free trip to just about anywhere in Europe. Any recommendations? Not Germany--the World Cup is on, and it'll be a pain. I'm leaning toward Budapest. Anyone been there?
Budapest is a cool city. I visited in Novemeber for 3 or 4 days and loved it. You can check out Prague and Vienna while you're there, since they're all really close.
I've always wanted to go to the Auschwitz concentration camp, but that's just because that kind of thing interests me....
Didn't get a chance to visit Auschwitz in Poland, but I did get to see the Terezin concentration camp in the Czech Republic, about an hour outside of Prague. It was intense, to say the least.
Flying into Budapest was ridiculously cheap. We flew in from Milan on Sky Europe and it was 12 Euro round trip (taxes included). From Budapest, we took a train to Vienna, and after a few days rented a car from Vienna and drove to Prague. It was actually cheaper to rent a car from Vienna than for the four of us to take the train. We ended up missing our flight out of Bratislava, Slovakia (45 minute drive from Vienna) and ended up staying there for 2 or 3 days, but that's a different story... Budapest, as you might already know, is really 2 cities - Buda and Pest, which are seperated by the river. You'll notice that one part is a lot more modern than the other. The nightlife in Budapest was great, but I can't remember the names of any of the places we went. We stayed at a small hotel called Queen Mary Hotel - it was clean, quiet, and cheap and I'd highly recommend it. Oh, and Budapest is ultra cheap. Stock up, if you can, because England is crazy expensive.
Thanks. I'm actually a British citizen, so I know the conversion rate like the back of my hand. How's the food in Budapest? Anthony Bourdain had his show there--it was East meets West, which, as portrayed, seemed great.
We didn't really do much fine dining in Budapest since we were just college kids studying abroad, but defenitely check out Gerbeaud Cafe. The had great Hungarian coffee and desserts.
SWITZERLAND! The greatest and most beautiful country in the WORLD! Fly to Geneva. Train to Lausanne, Leysin (small town up in the alps...) Train or bus or drive to Lugano (Italian side of Switzerland) Zurich... Etc. Switzerland photo's I've taken: http://uprising3k.net/pictures/first time using camera/Nature Scenery/
If you're single and want to have a great time, I recommend Prague. As for just bad ass scenery - take in Sorrento, on the coast of Italy. I can't possibly desribe how jaw-droppingly gorgeous that city is. If you want history, Rome's a good place to start. As much as it gets hit with the tourist crowd, it's worth it. One place I don't recommend is Venice. It's neat, but it smells and the overwhelming number of ******* tourists (in particular, those coming off of cruise ships) makes you feel like you're not even in Italy anymore. Everything was almost double the price too. I've been all over Europe, but spend most of my time in Germany, let me know if I can recommend anything else.
Athens, Greece would probably be good right now as it won't be that hot (whereas in the summer it could be). It is right up there with Rome when it comes to history, IMO.
Yeah, Switzerland is definitely jaw-dropping. Did you hit Grindelwald? http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/ph...and/grindelwald/night-valley-grindelwald.html Thanks for the new wallpaper, Up.
