Hi All :) I'm starting to plan a trip taking in some or all of Istanbul, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Vienna, Czech Republic & Poland between August & October.

I'd love to hear about anyone's favourite places, tips, stories etc. Or if you're heading for that part of the world & want to meet up!

I went to Poland in May '07:
GO TO KRAKOW! Old Town Krakow is beautiful and lively. Good food too :). I would recommend also taking a bus/train from Krakow to Auschwitz concentration camps for a day; it's not a fun experience but it's quite the eye opener.

I'll second the Prague notion!!

When first entering the Czech Republic, I was a little  'oh dear...., have i come to the right place?!' (all I remember is being amazed by the number of prositutes on the sides of the road as my bus rolled through!) but once I hit Prague I had absolutely no doubts that I was definitely where I wanted to be!

Such a vibrant city! Beautiful to explore by day, great fun to party at night =)

Hi CJ,

I have been to Slovakia, Czech Republic and Austria.
A lot has been said about Prague already so I will speak about another tip I can share.
Though Prague is definitely fantastic :)

If you travel from Bratislava [a quaint ,little lovely town in Slovakia, the capital actually ] to Vienna then for about 6-8 euros more on the train ticket you can get free unlimited use of Vienna public transport [bus/tram/underground] , 24/48 hours [check when you buy the ticket] Also the overall ticket price is cheaper when you travel from Slovakia to Austria.
Also if you like football, Vienna is the place to be in June :)
 I may be travelling to Istanbul in august [2nd week maybe] ,will update here as its decided.

Have a great trip and do let us know all about it when you get back  :)

“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps "Oh look at that!" Then- whoosh, and I'm gone. And they'll never see anything like it ever again... And they won't be able to forget me-EVER.”

I visited Istanbul in March-April this year for a couple of days. Really fascinating place - visit the sites of course but take the underground or the tram to the north of the city to escape the coachloads upon coachloads of tourists!

Stayed in the Orient hostel - nice place. It is well located and the staff were really friendly and helpful.

Most fun I had was probably visiting the Turkish baths. Go with a friend it is a really good laugh!

E :-)

One more thing, all these places except Vienna [which accepts Euro] have different currencies, which is quite a pain :)

And in Czech the Exchange offices were not reliable. So its best to use the ATMs to withdraw the required currency. Hope that helps!

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“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps "Oh look at that!" Then- whoosh, and I'm gone. And they'll never see anything like it ever again... And they won't be able to forget me-EVER.”

I was just in Bucharest, Romania last week.  Make sure you pack lots of light-weight pants/capris or long skirts, because it isn't culturally accepted there to wear shorts or really anything shorter than knee length, but it is really hot there, so I recommend tank tops and loose tees seeing as your legs will be boiling.

Also, I highly recommend you visit the Parliamentary Palace while you are there, but also experience some of the less-attractive parts of Romanian life. I was there on a service trip and didn't get to see much of the city, but I did visit some houses of HIV+ kids there (theres a huge population there with HIV). It was really, really moving to see the contrast between the amount of money Ceausescu (Communist president from '67-'89) was willing to spend on his palace and how little he was willing to spend on his people.