Doug Clark

We are planning to drive the back roads from Berlin through
Warsaw/Krakow/Budapest. We are planning on two weeks in
August/September.

*Any suggestions on what to see beyond the regular tour book items
would be appreciated.




*Any suggestions on housing.



Formula 1 is our price range but we would prefer places with more
flavor. We are thinking that there may be some chains of CAMPING
CABINS as are in the US and New Zealand.


*Any suggestions on food.



We are planning on using the available outdoor markets as well as
shops with prepared food or food can be prepared in the hotel. we want
to eat more like the middle class locals.

With the current exchange rate between the euro and dollar, this will
be a much more very expensive trip that our last trip in 2001.


http://www.geocities.com/beulavillenc/2001europe.html



Thanks in advance

Antonia

On 14 Aug 2004 05:40:24 -0700, Doug Clark wrote:

    >We are planning to drive the back roads from Berlin through
    >Warsaw/Krakow/Budapest. We are planning on two weeks in
    >August/September.

Then you'll most likely drive through Slovakia, one of the
loveliest "eastern", eh, *central* European countries. Try to
make time for at least one or two nights there (it is also one of
the cheapest countries... and the wine is pretty good :-))

    >*Any suggestions on what to see beyond the regular tour book items
    >would be appreciated.

In Slovakia stay at least a night in Banska Bystrica. One
comfortable half-days driving from Krakow.

    >*Any suggestions on housing.

In Krakow we were rather pleased with sodispar apartments
(www.sodispar.pl) - very cheap and very handy when driving - only
place in Poland I've had *no* qualms about parking on the street
(guarded parking one block away if you feel the need).

    >Formula 1 is our price range but we would prefer places with more
    >flavor.

We budgeted less than that - about max 40euros/night for two. Our
trip (this July) was 3 weeks, baltic states, poland, slovakia,
romania, hungary and back. On average it was enough, but a tiny
bit more wouldn't have hurt - especially when factoring in longer
stays in cities like Bratislava and Krakow.

For more "flavour" look for penzions - cheaper than hotels,
smaller and usually quite good.

    >We are thinking that there may be some chains of CAMPING
    >CABINS as are in the US and New Zealand.

If you like camping, cabins, nature and hiking you should
*really* plan on spending some time in Slovakia... They are
nature and hiking nuts!
Unfortunately *I* can't help you much with that, being a
city-person. Just one tip: avoid the high Tatras, they are
expensive and lack the friendliness found everywhere else (not
surprising, been a major tourist area for over a hundred years).

    >*Any suggestions on food.

Yes. Plan on dieting when you get home :-).

Ok, so I happen to *like* lots of meat and fried potatoes and
*good* sausages and game and chocolate and palatschinken and...

In Hungary (and in Krakow, and in Slovakia too) do try things
with liver - even if you normally *hate* liver. They really know
how to make it light and tasty.

    >We are planning on using the available outdoor markets as well as
    >shops with prepared food or food can be prepared in the hotel. we want
    >to eat more like the middle class locals.

We were the total opposite - we like eating out and eating stuff
we could never prepare ourselves. We saved buying food for the
journey home - filled up the car with all kinds of yummy local
stuff (and wine! Bless the EU - as my SO remarked: "a year ago
Finnish customes would have thrown us in jail for this amount of
wine and spirits") at Tesco. :-)
If you like going to the market, there's one more reason to stay
at the sodispar place in Krakow, it is only a block from a large
market, and several mid-sized grocery stores nearby; in those you
can really see what the middle class households are eating.

    >With the current exchange rate between the euro and dollar, this will
    >be a much more very expensive trip that our last trip in 2001.

When it comes to food I don't think you need to save by not
eating out - as long as you stay clear of the most typical
tourist locations (not that we weren't very positively surprised
at the high quality of some places like that, Wentzl in Krakow
comes to mind - but it wasn't cheap, probably something like
10-12 euros for a pasta and a dessert, but worth it.).

Have a good trip - 2 weeks is only so short... (are you planning
on doing Berlin-Budapest-Berlin in that time or only
Berlin-Budapest?)

If there is anything specific you are wondering about, just ask.


Antonia Palmén

--
Adress above is real but spam-infested. If you want me to read
a mail send it to firstname dot palmen at iki+news dot fi

HTML is great. On the web. Not on usenet. Not in my inbox.

Antonia

Oh, one other thing that might be good to prepare for:

On 14 Aug 2004 05:40:24 -0700, Doug Clark wrote:

    >We are planning to drive the back roads from Berlin through
    >Warsaw/Krakow/Budapest. We are planning on two weeks in
    >August/September.

[snip]

    > our last trip in 2001.
    >http://www.geocities.com/beulavillenc/2001europe.html

Only when I glanced through this did I even think about the
language question.

From our travels in the central europe I must say that Hungary
and Poland are the two countries where people are least likely to
speak English (or German, or (presumably) French). The Czech
republic, Slovakia and Romania are all much more
bi/tri/quad/multilingual (at least on a superficial level) than
Poland or Hungary.

For Poland this can be sort of fun, at least if you've ever been
exposed to any other Slavic language - reading street sign etc is
not really much of a problem with a little practice and some help
from a dictionary or such.

When it comes to Hungary it is a lost cause - you will *not* pick
up more than perhaps "thank you", "exit", "wine" and "beer" on a
quick visit. Not a lot of loanwords either.

We did think a lot about this on our trip this year.
Last year was our first visit to Poland, and the fact that Polish
is such a *big* language - most people don't seem to have any
need for another one (+being a slavic language Czech, Slovak,
Bulgarian & Russian is at least somewhat accessible to Polish
speakers) - came as a surprise to us.
Last year on our way home, after a week in Poland, we got the
culture shock of the trip when stopping at a petrol station cum
café a few km after the bordercrossing to Lithuania: Not only did
the people there readily understand that we *didn't* understand
Lithuania, they even spoke a few words of English/German!

So the monolingualism of Poland is sort of understandable, but
Hungary? Only 10 million (+what, another million? more? in
neighbouring countries), and a language that is not understood by
*anyone*, either near or far. One guidebook said something like
8% of Hungarians know some English and 9% some German. And it
seemed to us like a pretty fair estimate.

I haven't read (or noticed) any similar figures for either
Romania or Slovakia, but the difference is really noticeable.
(Romanians - or the small, small north-eastern part we looked at
- surprisingly enough being surprisingly good at at least
English, from a tourist POV on par with, say, Estonia.

Any Hungarians or Hungary-experts here that can give some insight
into this?

Antonia Palmén

--
Adress above is real but spam-infested. If you want me to read
a mail send it to firstname dot palmen at iki+news dot fi

HTML is great. On the web. Not on usenet. Not in my inbox.

Bogus Address

    > Hungary and Poland are the two countries where people are least
    > likely to speak English (or German, or (presumably) French). [...]
    > the monolingualism of Poland is sort of understandable, but Hungary?
    > Only 10 million (+what, another million? more? in neighbouring
    > countries), and a language that is not understood by *anyone*, either
    > near or far. One guidebook said something like 8% of Hungarians know
    > some English and 9% some German. And it seemed to us like a pretty
    > fair estimate.

Yep. I once tried to find out about trains fom Budapest to Istanbul,
at the main eastbound railway station. Where the majority of passengers
were Turkish. You'd think that the person serving them at the counter
ought to know at least a few words of their language, hmm? Nope. Nor
English, nor French, nor German. Not much better with doodled maps and
arrows. We ended up going with a Turkish-speaking Bosnian bus company
instead.

========> Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce <========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html> food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.

Don

Interesting insight.

Doug Clark

Thanks for your advice!

We are off tomorrow.

Doug Clark
www.geocities.com/beulavillenc/europe2004


The Don <member3280@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected] om>...
    > > > Hungary and Poland are the two countries where people are least
    > > > likely to speak English (or German, or (presumably) French). [...]
    > > > the monolingualism of Poland is sort of understandable, but Hungary?
    > > > Only 10 million (+what, another million? more? in neighbouring
    > > > countries), and a language that is not understood by *anyone*,
    > > > either
    > > > near or far. One guidebook said something like 8% of Hungarians know
    > > > some English and 9% some German. And it seemed to us like a pretty
    > > > fair estimate.
    > >
    > > Yep. I once tried to find out about trains fom Budapest to Istanbul,
    > > at the main eastbound railway station. Where the majority of
    > > passengers
    > > were Turkish. You'd think that the person serving them at the counter
    > > ought to know at least a few words of their language, hmm? Nope. Nor
    > > English, nor French, nor German. Not much better with doodled maps
    > > and
    > > arrows. We ended up going with a Turkish-speaking Bosnian bus company
    > > instead.
    > >
    > > ========> Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce
    > > ========> <========
    > > Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131
    > > 6604760
    > > <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html> food intolerance data &
    > > recipes,
    > > Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of
    > > Scottish music.
    >
    > Interesting insight.

Geoff McCaughan

Doug Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
    > We are planning to drive the back roads from Berlin through
    > Warsaw/Krakow/Budapest. We are planning on two weeks in
    > August/September.

That will be fun.

    > *Any suggestions on what to see beyond the regular tour book items
    > would be appreciated.

The thing we regretted when we travelled that way was that we didn't spend
more time in Slovakia. When you look at the guidebooks etc, there doesn't
seem to be that much to see in Slovakia, but it is a scenic and untouristy
country - next time we'll spend more time there.

    > *Any suggestions on food.

Our experience was that the food in Hungary was better than the other
countries we visited. A gastronomic delight [and we didn't have gulyas
once].

    > With the current exchange rate between the euro and dollar, this will
    > be a much more very expensive trip that our last trip in 2001.

Eastern Europe is cheaper than western though.

--
Burn the land and boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me.

Roman Werpachowski

On the Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:51:35 +0300, Antonia wrote:

    > If you like camping, cabins, nature and hiking you should
    > *really* plan on spending some time in Slovakia... They are
    > nature and hiking nuts!
    > Unfortunately *I* can't help you much with that, being a
    > city-person. Just one tip: avoid the high Tatras, they are
    > expensive and lack the friendliness found everywhere else (not
    > surprising, been a major tourist area for over a hundred years).

Zakopane may sure is expensive, but the point of going there is hiking in
the mountains, which are beautiful, however overcrowded.




--
Roman Werpachowski
/--------==============--------\
| http://www.cft.edu.pl/~roman |
\--------==============--------/