Recommendations for 15 day FlexiPass

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Hey

I'm going to be in Paris this winter, and have a 15 day global flexi pass with me (though I'm keen to use not more than 5-6 days on this trip). I am interested in discovering new places in Eastern Europe, but will be travelling alone. Can anyone recommend a route? I was considering Budapest-Bucharest-Belgrade and maybe going from there to Istanbul (and flying back to Paris) but perhaps that is too optimistic. Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Well, there are couple things we can suggest here:

a) if you didn't purchase you pass yet, it might make sense to rethink such purchase (at least for Central Europe and Balkans journeys), because in absolute majority of cases Eurail pass is useless money spending for trips anywhere east from Germany/Austria. If you already have the pass, then maybe you should think on spending travel days on "expensive" countries (--> majority of Western European ones) where pass is indeed a good travel option.

b) but in case you totally ok spending pass travel days on Central Europe and Balkans, then probably a good itinerary would be to start from Paris with high-speed train to Germany. This way you for instance can reach Budapest (or Prague, or Vienna) in a day long journey, meaning you'll use only 1 travel day from your pass in order to reach you first Central European destination. Same trick with one travel day you can do for Budapest to Bucharest (in can be either really long day journey or overnight trip with 7pm rule). With Bucharest to Belgrade it's more tricky, since direct train is canceled and in order to reach Serbian capital you'll have to make a couple changes, although again 7pm rule can as well save you pass day here. Thus overall the entire itinerary Paris-Budapest-Bucharest-Belgrade can be done by using only 3 pass travel days. If you want to add Istanbul as the final destination, then again you should be ready for train changes (no direct rail connection here already for a while)

c) what concerns suggestion about destinations to visit, then probably can be added Prague, Vienna (either or both can be done before Budapest, meaning Paris-Prague/Vienna-Budapest and so on). Also might be a good idea to consider Transylvania (either "usual" Brasov, Sibiu, Sighisoara or something more exotic and less touristy), region is right in between Budapest and Bucharest. And finally from Serbia to Istanbul you can travel either via Bulgaria (also quite a few places to see there) or FYR Macedonia (lake Ohrid) and Greece (Thessaloniki). Although you should understand that additional stops will require additional travel days from you pass or, if it's a relatively short trip, a separate point to point ticket instead of using pass day.