Going Eastern Europe : Slovakia, Hungary and around !
Suppose that you NEED holidays, you want to spend them in a foreign country, (to visit) and your budget is not very …very extensible, where would you go ?
Well, go East !
The flights rates to get there were cheap, we didn’t knowthat much eastern Europe, so I got this idea : why wouldn’t Isabelle and I go and see what’s really up there ?
Anyway, we needed holidays, got 9 days (an entire week+ a week end) to spend, and didn’t want to go somewhere too touristy and too far away from home (France actually)…
Our “targeted budget” was :
- 30 € for the hotel per night (for both of us) including breakfast (well, targeted is the word, could be more than the double… and often 45€)
- 30 € per day (for both of us) to eat in restaurants (this is more than reasonable, count between 4 and 7 euros per meal, and sometimes, you won’t be able to finish…)
- 200 € for car renting, 130 € for flights, 100 € for gas (well, the gas rate is something like 20% less than in France, so count 1 € for a litre of Natural 95
Let’s say that with 1000 € you’ll get more than enough to move around eastern europe during 10 days, but don’t think that everything is cheaper … (hotels aren’t indeed)
Before getting there
Well, don’t expect us to get all the hotel reservations before getting there, we’re way too busy unorganized to get this set up…But at least we got :
- Flight tickets, bought at Skyeurope, a low cost company to get east at a rate of … 127€ for both, return, with all taxes (would mean 32 € each single …, at least it’s less expensive than travelling 500 km by train in France…) … the drawback is that you have to book VERY early
- First night reservation for the hotel
- A car reservation : that’s an entire subject : how to choose the best car rental company… of course hertz, budget, europcar, avis and consorts are present in Slovakia… but the price still the same, they always add extra insurances (which in fact you are urged to subscribe), at the end they were equally very expensive : 350 € for 9 days (including extra driver insurance, aged less than 25 + international insurance). So why the heck wouldn’t we try the Slovakian rental companies ? that’s that we did, and if the price was still expensive with Alimex, if we could pay only cash with Auto Rental (and do you want to pay cash a car rental in a foreign country ?I don’t, for sure), then we had an excellent contact with Euro Road, a Slovakian car rental company, very cheap, English speaking, with new cars, that I recommend.They answered our emails, were there on time at the airport to bring us our car, a Skoda Fabia, with only … 158 km of mileage !!! It was new ! It cost us 7000 SKK (around 210 € for 9 days, unlimited mileage with all insurance and Slovakian motorway tax paid)
PS when you phone them or email them, ask Marcela, she’s not only very efficient but she perfectly understands english too) - Slovakian kuruns and Hungarian forints, the local money, but if you’ve got one of those cards, you’ll be able to get some cash at an ATM (be aware that a redraw can be EXPENSIVE depending on your bank…)
That should be all, let’s go !
Saturday, the 17th of March: Arrival in Bratislava
We arrived on time at Bratislava, got our luggage, and then met our car rental company.
The car rented, we headed to Bratislava centre, next to the train station to get to the hotel we booked 2 days ago : Spirit Hotel, a quite expensive but still a nice hotel.
To be honest, we were quite surprised when we checked in as the price asked wasn’t the one told on the phone 2 days ago…
So we paid 1800 SKK for a night instead of the 1100 we understood (and our guide mentioned), but the hotel is still very charming (they’re working a lot on the aspect of the hotel..loads of colours and forms everywhere, even inside the room !).
During the night, we visited 2 bars in Bratislava we quite enjoyed : The Dubliner (an Irish pub, very nice atmosphere, it was Saint Patrick’s night !) and, a more Slovakian address : KGB : a kind of “communist-nostalgic-style” restaurant where the food was good (we ate Kettel Gulash) and the music too !
Sunday, the 18th of March: Moving to Strecno, near Zilina
We took the road to go North East, and we stopped by at a very nice castle, called Cerveny Kamen, not very far from Bratislava (something like an hour,60 km, well, when you take the good road…), where we could discover the HUGE caves the owners of the castle used to keep ???.
After this visit, we saw a show with trained eagles, next to the castle, quite impressive when they fly just next to you !
We took the road to Zilina where we arrived around 7PM and no hotel was answering the phone (and some others were really too much expensive), but we finally booked a room at a pension in Strecno, near Zilina (some would say 7 minutes far from Zilina driving, but I’m still not sure…).
This pension, Pension Irenka was one of the best we visited during our trip ! (I didn’t find much info about Strecno on the net, but this is the official Strecno website (in Slovakian…)).
And Strecno was certainly the most welcoming city we visited during our trip…
We didn’t stay a long time there, just one night, but the people of Strecno were very welcoming and happy to speak with foreigners. (at the beginning they thought we were from the French twinning city !).
But that was only the beginning of the night, and at the restaurant closing (the pizzeria in Strecno, a very good one I have to say !) some of them, Samuel, Pecka, Lubo and Adam invited us to their house, where they made us taste some local apple digestive (by local I mean they make it themselves, bringing their apples to a farm nearby which makes the alcohol out of it) and some delicious home-made cakes ! I hope we’ll be able to see them again, it was very interesting chatting with some people of our age in Slovakia !
Monday, the 19th of March: Leaving Strecno, visiting Vlkolinec, moving to the Tatras…
Before leaving Strecno, we went up to the castle, which was unfortunately closed (well, in Slovakia, the touristic season begins in April and closes roughly in September; if you travel, like we did, outside this period, you’ll find many doors closed…), but was still very beautiful from outside !
Then, back on the road, we drove in the direction of Presov, and stopped to visit the small wooden village of Vlkolinec. Wooden ? because it is only composed with wood made houses (by the way, Vlkolínec is part of the Unesco Worl Heritage)
It was very strange, because it was like a dead city, no one was outside, only a dog barked at us ! (we haven’t seen anybody).
Then we decided to visit a cave nearby, Demanovska Dolina, but it was closed when we arrived (closed at 3:30PM during the winter…).
We finally arrived in Presov, where we slept at the Pension Lineas, for as cheap as 1000 SKK, including breakfast and parking (around 30 €), in a “very old style looking” building !
But everything was ok there, provided you don’t fear very old lifts !
Tuesday, the 20th of March : Andy Warhol Museum, the wooden churches
The next morning, we went to the Andy Warhol Museum in Medzilaborce, not very far from Medzilaborce (2 hours driving) and the museum was closed because they were preparing an exhibition.
But this time we insisted a bit, and they let us get inside ! (I thank them again !)
Although this museum is, naturally, very focused on Andy Warhol life (they keep his letters, and even flight coupons!), they also make you discover his older brother, Paul, which began lately an artist too (I didn’t know that part…)
Oh by the way, why an Andy Warhol museum in this tiny town of Medzilaborce , Slovakia ? Because his parents emigrated from there to go to Pittsburgh !
Close to Medzilaborce, we could discover the wooden churches near Prokra and Bodruzal.
These are quite small churches, entirely made from wood. Few are remaining because of the 2nd world war, a terrible fight occurred in the mountains of Dukla…
This is quite amazing actually !
While we were there, we enjoyed our lunch (a gulash) in Dukla, Poland (well I have to admit we thought they have the Euro in Poland, but it is still zlotte, 2008 maybe…).
Then we headed south to Kosice, to prepare our departure to Hungary…
To sleep, we found the Hotel Akademia, quite expensive (2000 SKK, 60 €) and not very clean nor comfortable, but hey it’s the second biggest city of Slovakia, so don’t expect to find good prices !
When we were looking for a place to have dinner (at 11PM…) we found this great restaurant in Kosice : Villa Regia (Dominikanske namestie c 3, Kosice) : very good food , very well served !
Wednesday, the 21st of March : Visiting Kosice, going to Debrecen, Hungary
Kosice is really a nice town, and got plenty of museums to visit…
We only stayed until 2PM, and we had time to visit the center of the city, the museum of eastern Slovakia (mainly about the history of civilization in this area) THE ice cream shop : Aida (home made ice creams, delicious !!) and … that’s it !
Then we drove to Debrecen, in Hungary (mainly on motorways : they have new motorways in Hungary, it’s a pleasure driving there !!) where we found a nice Panzio, Panzio Peterfia (at the beginning it was quite difficult to understand each other because the owner of the Panzio, a very nice lady doesn’t speak a word of English nor French nor Spanish …. but hopefully, a customer did !)
Thursday, the 22nd of March : Short visit of Debrecen, and Romania, then going West to Budapest
We enjoyed a nice morning in Debrecen, and, we visited, once more (!), a church, the Saint Anna Church…
It’s really something to visit, as you climb to the top and enjoy an excellent view of the entire city !
We decided then to go to Romania, not really far away from Debrecen (50 km maybe).
If we couldn’t spot a difference between the 2 countries driving from Slovakia to Hungary, that was really different when we entered Romania (not the same level of equipment).
But it is quite beautiful there ! We drove something like 50 km there and we stopped at bar/restaurant in Sacueni (a small village).
Well, we couldn’t speak a word of Romanian, but the people were very helpful to us, accepted to prepare us lunch (it was 5PM, we didn’t know that Romania doesn’t share the same time zone [UTC+2 whereas it is UTC+1 in western Europe]) and even accepted our euros as the money to pay them.
The change was given in the Romanian money, so we spend it in a local store, where I bought some nice cakes filled with raspberry.
Time to go to Budapest, so we drove back to Hungary (the customs officers in Hungary were suspicious about the purpose of our visit in Romania… they made us open our trunk, asked us many questions…) and finally reached the busy city of Budapest (yeah, the motorways in Hungary are really great, always a pleasure to drive there !).
We slept in an Hungarian Bed & Breakfast, called ???? owned by a Hungarian family (in a huge house) in Buda, and we enjoyed a very tasty and most of all copious meal in ??? restaurant (the only restaurant we went twice !).
Friday, Saturday the 23rd and 24th of March : Visiting and resting in Budapest
We didn’t visit much of Budapest because I got ill there (Doh !).
But we still visited the museum of horror : a museum located in the building where the Nazis and then the Communists governments were settled, which will explain to you the horrors the Hungarians had to deal with…
It’s pretty well done (a lot of text to read, but the design of the rooms are very artistic), mainly focused on the Communist Terror, the most impressive is at the end of the visit, where you can visit the prisons where they kept the political dissidents…quite scary…
We also visited the museum of ???, walked in Pest, sadly it was mainly raining while we were there…
Sunday, the 25th of March : getting back home …
We took the road to Bratislava, only 2 hours far from Budapest driving (we stopped in Austria which is very near Bratislava : 10km or so).
From then, we gave the car back to the renter, everything went fine, and we could chek in for our flight to Paris (Orly Sud)…
Impressions, more links
This trip was totally refreshing : the atmosphere is friendly, you’re feeling welcome wherever you go there !
We didn’t have any problems there, just good surprises and good meetings!
Our only regret is that March is definitely not the month to get there, so many attractions are closed…
Yes, we really enjoyed our holidays there, and I can only advice you to give Slovakia and Hungary a try, they’re really worth spending some time !
Isabelle and Anthony’s holidays photos in Slovakia and Hungary
Isabelle and Anthony’s Itinerary Map in Eastern Europe