We're open on this. DH mentioned Ireland or Prague, I'd love to do a loop of France (Paris, Normandy, Loire Valley- I've been to the first 2 but this is a loop DH would love), and I'd love to go back to Italy. Not really interested in Germany though. Poland? A friend went and said it was very lovely. We are not set on destination, but the cottage we usually rent for a week is now up to $3000 and while we love relaxing near the ocean, it's a lot of money for a week and we started talking about what ELSE we could do for that kind of cash.
I just went to Krakow and Prague in December. What a trip!!!
If I had it to do over again, I'd have spent the full 10-days in Krakow.
Krakow was clean and EVERYONE speaks English. I make sure to know a few words in any language when I'm going to another country... Please, Thank you, Hello, Goodbye..., but when I was using Google maps and was lost, I could literally ask anyone and they helped and spoke English. Krakow is very safe.
Krakow is SO inexpensive! I was there with my aunt and her friend. The three of us ate at a Michelin recommended steakhouse, had 40-day aged steaks, I had oysters as a starter, we had all the side dishes, drinks and dessert for $150 total.
Before I went, I joined a few Krakow tour sites on Facebook, so i could ask questions while making plans. What I learned is that Viator and other tour groups don't schedule tickets to Auschwitz in advance so they often times cancel at the last minute. It was less expensive and easier for us to book on our own and take a Bolt from our hotel to the museum site. We could have taken a train or bus, but for the $75 expense each way of a Bolt (like Uber) it was more convenient for us.
There is a lot of cobblestone, but the only real hill was to Wawel Castle. It's a steep hill, but you can walk up slowly. The self-guided tour was great. It uses RFI with over the head earphones, so if you're in a room and sick of the description, you can walk to the other side of the room, or into another one and the description fades out and starts another, based on your location. The gift shops had a lot of things that were in the main square for a fraction of the cost. I bought my MIL an amber rosary at the castle for 89 zloty where the same rosary was in the cloth hall for 450 zloty.
We were there for 6 days and didn't see everything. We saw the castle over a complete day, Auschwitz and then Wawel Cathedral on another day, St. Mary's Basilica, Jagiellonian University's Collegium Maius, the trumpeter at St. Mary's and a bunch of other churches near the square. We ate a lot in the Kazimierz, but never made it to Schindler's Factory or the Jewish memorials. We also ran out of time for the Salt Mines. I went to visit St. Faustina's grave and the Divine Mercy Chapel and its grounds. St. Faustina is one of my favorite saints, so it was amazing to be there.
We stayed about a mile from the old town square because my aunt wanted to save money. The Hilton was less than $100 per day and was lovely and the staff awesome... as was breakfast each day. However, I'd have preferred to have stayed on/near the square. I'll do that next time. We took the train to Prague and I can tell you about that trip, too, if you'd like. The train took 6.5 hours.
To take a Bolt from our hotel to the main square was about $3-4 each time.
I planned this on my own. I like to do things on my schedule and not on someone else's schedule. I'm happy to help you if you'd like. IM me if you'd like to discuss it further.
Foreign travel isn't as scary as you think it might be.
. I don't think you need any agent in this case...you can book through the company (or a similar company) directly.
