I’m beginning to plan my travel plans for next summer, and I have a few logistical questions, and I’d also appreciate opinions and suggestions as well.
I’d like to focus mostly on eastern europe, and travel for about 2 months (july and august). Greece and Italy will be the last two countries visited (ferrying from Greece to Italy, where I’ll meet up with friends and were my travel companion will be studying for her fall semester.)
So the first question is how she should go about getting a study visa from Italy. She was told by a counselor that she may not be able to apply enough the visa before we leave for the summer.
Also, I will most likely need to be in Thailand in mid september. Should I just fly home (to NY) or will I be able to find a good deal to get to Thailand from Europe?
As far as itinerary goes, we were thinking of flying into Istanbul, and traveling around the Balkans, and maybe parts of Germany, too. Follow the Danube North, basically, ending in the black forest, and the working south along the adriatic coast down to Greece, and ferrying to Bari, Italy. Does this sound reasonable? What cities do we absolutely have to visit? So far Budapest and Prague are the only real musts visits, along with Istanbul. Is that a good starting point? We may be in Sofia, Bulgaria to visit a friend of mine, if he’ll be there. If not, is it worth it?
Where are your favorite places in Eastern Europe? Another friends family is in Macedonia and Croatia, so we’ll prolly spend 5-7 days in each of those places.