11 great Eastern European city breaks for autumn 2019 and where to stay
An Eastern European city break can provide the same blend of culture, history, good food and fun as its central and southern European neighbours - but often for a cheaper price tag. Add to that an architectural mish-mash, from Baroque and Medieval, through to Art Nouveau and Socialist-era, plus green spaces, market squares and a host of exciting hotels, and you have the perfect ingredients for a weekend away.
Our experts offer a guide to the top 11 destinations for a city break in Eastern Europe, including what to do and where to stay in Krakow, Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Ljubljana, Riga, Tallinn and more.
POLAND
Krakow
Poland’s most beautiful city has a remarkable market square dominated by its Renaissance Cloth Hall and the 14th-century St. Mary’s Basilica from where a trumpeter marks the hour night and day. High on the hill is the Wawel Castle overlooking cobbled streets full of restaurants. Exhibitions in the many museums include Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine. From Krakow, it is easy to do day trips to the extraordinary 13th-century salt mines of Wieliczka, an underground world of chapels and statues carved in salt.
WHERE TO STAY
The Bonerowski Palace
Krakow, Poland
9Telegraph expert rating
There are just 16 rooms in this beautiful palace, whose origins can be traced back to the late 13th century. The hotel offers views directly onto the market square and provides luxurious accommodation imbued with a sense of place, accompanied by fine dining. Read expert review From £215 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Hotel Polski Pod Białym Orłem
Krakow, Poland
8Telegraph expert rating
This is one of the oldest hotels in Kraków, whose buildings date back to the 18th century. It was turned into a hotel by owner Prince Czartoryski before the Second World War. It's set on one of the cobbled streets that lead off the market square, making it an ideal base for exploring the city. Read expert review From £72 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Warsaw
Warsaw is a dynamic city, with a rich cultural life spanning opera to concerts, theatre to art exhibitions and, of late, a cluster of just-opened museums including the Marie Curie-Skłodowska Museum. It has a vibrant nightlife and buzzy modern restaurant scene – but don’t ignore the traditional Polish pierogis (dumplings) or delicious potato pancakes served with a dollop of sour cream. There are excellent clothes designers, old artisanal leather workers and several leafy parks in which to stroll and, of course, there is the vodka.
WHERE TO STAY
Hotel Bristol
Warsaw, Poland
9Telegraph expert rating
A landmark on the city skyline. Hotel Bristol has long played an integral role in Warsaw life, hosting leading figures from the worlds of politics and music to the heads of royal families. Its elegant Art Nouveau interiors house the most luxurious rooms in Poland. Read expert review From £133 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Hotel Rialto
Warsaw, Poland
8Telegraph expert rating
This Art Nouveau bolthole offers rooms and apartments in an early 20th-century tenement house in the city centre. Its highly polished wooden and brass interiors, straight from the roaring 1920s, successfully recreates a past era. It is within easy walking distance of the elegant Nowy Świat shopping street. Read expert review From £92 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Wroclaw
The red-bricked town of Wrocław lies along the River Oder, over which more than a hundred bridges link the islands which make up this ancient city. The university, whose Baroque Leopolindum Hall is not to be missed, boasts nine Nobel laureate alumni. There are also many parks and botanical gardens. But the beautiful medieval market square is the city’s crowning glory. Lined with restaurants in vaulted cellars under the gilded and ornate ancient buildings, the square houses a remarkable late-Gothic town hall complete with a 16th-century astronomical clock. Around this, cafés spill out onto the cobbled square, creating a real-life city living room.
WHERE TO STAY
Grape Hotel & Restaurant
Wrocław, Poland
9Telegraph expert rating
The hotel is housed in a beautifully renovated pre-war villa, surrounded by gardens and across the river from the main city. It comes complete with a wellness centre, pays homage to oenology in its 13 bedrooms, library of more than 400 wines and its gourmet restaurant. Read expert review From £58 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Puro Wrocław
Wrocław, Poland
8Telegraph expert rating
Design-savvy Puro Hotels consider themselves more social and cultural hubs than mere hotels. The bedrooms are stylishly simple and the open-plan lobby multitasks as a library and café. It's in Wrocław’s former Jewish district, now a beacon of cool, brimming with beer gardens and good restaurants. Read expert review From £60 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
HUNGARY
Budapest
With Art Nouveau splendours lining a curve of the Danube, Budapest promises genteel romance. While the fin-de-siècle façades, old-fashioned cafés and refined baths politely sweep you off your feet, the traces of Goulash communism and the city’s fascinating modern history add spice. Budapest is an easy city to navigate, with the river at its heart. Cross a bridge to the west and you’re in Buda, the leafy hills hiding natural hot springs and crowned with a palace that provide views down to the scene-stealing Gothic parliament building on the far riverbank. Behind this is Pest, the eastern city, unified with Buda in 1873, where you’ll find attractive boulevards and the Jewish quarter.
Where to stay
Aria Hotel Budapest
Budapest, Hungary
9Telegraph expert rating
The music-themed Aria – in the shadow of St Stephen’s Basilica – is undoubtedly one of the top hotels in Budapest. You’ll find large, fabulously equipped rooms, a soaring garden courtyard with a space-age piano, a seductive underground spa and swimming pool, and an atmospheric rooftop bar. Read expert review From £284 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Brody House
Budapest, Hungary
7Telegraph expert rating
Brody House has genuine feel-good factor. With shabby chic communal areas and art-inspired bedrooms, the accommodation is as colourful and quirky as it comes. Overall, it blends the feel of a family home and a private club. Read expert review From £58 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
ESTONIA
Tallinn
Tallinn has long been a highlight on the Baltic cruise roster and has grown in popularity as a city break destination. The Estonian capital’s beautifully preserved, compact medieval Old Town is the main attraction, along with the delightful Kadriorg Park and absorbing KUMU art museum and award-winning Seaplane Harbour Museum. The city is a convenient Baltic hop away for Finnish day-trippers and weekenders, drawn by the historic ambience, charming cobbled streets and wide choice of bars, restaurants and hotels. Cosy and embellished with snow in winter, and buoyant and extrovert in summer, this proud city bears a few architectural relics of five decades of Soviet rule – but is decidedly 21st century in outlook.
Where to stay
Schlössle Hotel
Tallinn, Estonia
8Telegraph expert rating
Schlössle offers five-star luxury in a beautifully restored 13th-century merchant's house in one of the quieter quarters of Tallinn's Old Town. Entries in an absorbing guestbook range from rock group Status Quo to Queen Elizabeth II. Historical details are preserved in all rooms, from wooden beams to window alcoves. Read expert review From £147 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Solo Sokos Hotel Estoria
Tallinn, Estonia
8Telegraph expert rating
The Estoria, located on the edge of Tallinn’s charming medieval Old Town, has 93 rooms dedicated to a different story from Estonian culture or history. The breakfast in the Merineitsi restaurant features healthy smoothies and juices and an ample buffet spread, including Estonian cheeses, berries, fish and cheese cuts. Read expert review From £94 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
CZECH REPUBLIC
Prague
Expect gleaming software company offices and glitzy fashion shops – all squeezed in among the fabulously restored Baroque architecture and cobbled lanes of Old Town. From June to August it’s usually overrun - though it’s easy to give tourists the slip in Malá Strana and Žižkov. Autumn is lovely, cool and nearly tourist-free, with snow-capped Gothic spires a sight to savour in winter.
Where to stay
Augustine
Prague, Czech Republic
9Telegraph expert rating
Arguably one of Prague's most impressive accommodation options, the five-star Augustine merges a historical location with some seriously sharp contemporary design. Amenities include a comprehensive spa, a magnificent cocktail bar and courtyard restaurant with terrace. Read expert review From £266 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Fusion Hotel
Prague, Czech Republic
9Telegraph expert rating
Positioned somewhere between a backpacker and a design hotel, this hip and multi-faceted hotel complex close to Wenceslas Square features a range of individually decorated rooms, a revolving bar, several in-house restaurants, and a games room with in-built Skype booth. Read expert review From £80 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
ROMANIA
Bucharest
Visitors to Bucharest have been flocking in recent years thanks to the revived cobblestone streets of the Old Town and its long-standing bohemian café culture, not to mention the 1,100-room Palace of Parliament. In the Old Town, century-old Orthodox churches captivate alongside the grand Belle Époque palazzos of the monarchy days. Each corner of the city reveals a mix of old and new. Driven by an infectious entrepreneurial spirit, new hip restaurants and creative hubs are opening every other week. Today’s Bucharest rewards with cultural effervescence, more lush parks than you’d expect and exceptionally good coffee.
Where to stay
Hotel Epoque
Bucharest, Romania
9Telegraph expert rating
For a boutique hotel in downtown Bucharest, Hotel Epoque provides utmost character and grace, oozing discreet luxury in colour and style. The spa comes complete with a dimly lit heated pool, dry sauna and hammam. Read expert review From £105 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Hotel Cismigiu
Bucharest, Romania
8Telegraph expert rating
Hotel Cismigiu is located on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, next to Bucharest’s first and most picturesque park, after which it is named. It's minutes from the pulsating Old Town. It is considered one of Bucharest’s most elegant hotels since its opening in 1920. Read expert review From £79 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
LATVIA
Riga
With its beautifully preserved Unesco-listed old town centre, vibrant bars and cafés – and one of the greatest concentrations of Art Nouveau buildings of any city anywhere in the world – Riga is unquestionably the most compelling city on the Baltic. It's easy to navigate on foot; within just a short walk you’ll find lush green parks, outstanding museums, great restaurants and some exquisite boutique hotels, all steeped in a fantastically rich maritime history and framed by an unforgettable skyline of pointy church spires.
Where to stay
Dome Hotel & Spa
Riga, Latvia
9Telegraph expert rating
Dome Hotel and Spa is an outstanding boutique hotel in the heart of Riga’s Unesco-listed old town centre, with masses of character, and a phenomenally good restaurant that is a destination in itself. The hotel is luxurious and supremely stylish, with plenty of period features. Read expert review From £218 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Grand Palace Hotel
Riga, Latvia
8Telegraph expert rating
The Grand Palace's interior design still oozes fin de siècle opulence, with a marble staircase, Ottoman-style rugs and gold-painted fittings. It's in the heart of Riga’s Unesco-listed old town centre, just two minutes' walk from the Cathedral. Read expert review From £143 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
SLOVAKIA
Bratislava
Fronted by the River Danube and backed by lofty, forested hills, Bratislava’s beguiling, bijou Old Town nestles prettily beneath its castle, and charms almost everyone with its dinky labyrinth of cobbled streets: uncrowded by the standards of European capitals and yet full of a treasure trove of attractions. These are mainly of the serendipitous and quirky kind: fabulous cafés, hidden art galleries and bizarre museums paying homage to everything from clocks to the country’s distinctive viticulture scene. Meanwhile nature, in the form of a hike, bike or boat trip, remains remarkably close, within two kilometres of the centre.
Where to stay
Marrol's Boutique Hotel Bratislava
Bratislava, Slovakia
8Telegraph expert rating
Marrol’s mixes dignity and down-to-earth-ness amid the haughtily elegant townhouses of Bratislava’s delightful Old Town. The hotel exemplifies that small-but-special feel, as do the labyrinth of cobbled streets outside. Marrol’s will probably appeal most to romantic weekend-breakers. Read expert review From £74 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Loft Hotel Bratislava
Bratislava, Slovakia
9Telegraph expert rating
Proudly different from Bratislava’s other hotel offerings, Loft Hotel brightens an unsung but up-and-coming swathe of the city between the Old Town and the railway station with its industrial chic sophistication, beaming staff and fantastic craft beer pub. Read expert review From £64 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
SLOVENIA
Ljubljana
The bijou Slovenian capital of Ljubljana unfurls like a greatest hits of Eastern European city breaks. There is the cobbled chocolate box pretty Old Town, a cute hilltop castle and a sweep of architecture that boasts everything from Baroque and Medieval, through to Art Nouveau and Socialist-era chic. Swirl in bountiful food markets, cafés and local produce-fuelled restaurants by the willow-strewn backs of the Ljubljanica River, then the buzz bursting from the large student population. This laid-back city, reclining in the shadow of the Slovenian Alps, is never short of charming and utterly compelling.
Where to stay
InterContinental Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia
8Telegraph expert rating
Ljubljana’s tallest and first five-star hotel adds a slice of international luxury to Slovenia’s capital, with sweeping views of the castle and Julian Alps from the upper floors, and a fabulous Mediterranean-inspired menu overseen by Alfredo Russo, a Michelin-starred Italian chef. Read expert review From £140 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Celica Hostel
Ljubljana, Slovenia
9Telegraph expert rating
This 19th-century prison in Ljubljana was renovated to create a slick, stylish and unique hostel with private rooms in former cells. It also offers dormitory beds, and a café-restaurant with a garden terrace, staging occasional concerts and art exhibitions. Read expert review From £20 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
GEORGIA
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is one of the most enticing destinations in Europe. This is the crossroads of the East and West, where cuisine blends French sophistication with Turkish spice and tandoor ovens from India. Architecture is a similar meld of Art Deco and Soviet-era lines. Through scorching summers and snowy winters, the hopping Rustaveli area hides a medley of one-off boutiques, galleries and street bazaars like the Dry Bridge Flea Market. As one might expect from the home of viticulture, Tbilisi's Old Town hosts countless wine bars that pour 525 grape varieties for a song. By night this quarter sings on in the form of jazz bars, street theatre and the nation’s spell-bindingly unique polyphonic chanting.
Where to stay
Stamba Hotel
Tbilisi, Georgia
9Telegraph expert rating
This former Soviet-era publishing house has been transformed into a design-centric hotel with on-point interiors, a glass-bottomed pool and a grand café serving modern takes on traditional Georgian dishes. It perfectly encapsulates a city on the cusp of change. Read expert review From £173 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Ilja's Hotel
Tbilisi, Georgia
8Telegraph expert rating
Tbilisi’s most historic micro-hotel transports its guests back to Belle Epoque Paris. An Art Deco lobby with zinc-topped check-in desk is staffed by one-woman owner and concierge Ilja. Four rooms, which pair herringbone parquet with large televisions, lead off from a glass-walled breakfast room. Read expert review From £43 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Contributions by Rudolf Abraham, Tim Bird, Mary Lussiana, Robin McKelvie, Adrian Phillips, Tristan Rutherford, Paul Sullivan, Monica Suma and Luke Waterson.
