Eastern Europe's quiet tourist attractions are the perfect destination for the open-minded traveller, writes Enda O'Doherty.
Slovenia Adria Airways flies once a week from Dublin to Ljubljana. Ryanair flies from Stansted to Trieste - and also to Klagenfurt and Graz, in Austria, which are within easy reach of the Slovenian border.
Slovakia Aer Lingus flies to Vienna; Sky Europe flies from Stansted to Bratislava. From either capital it is a half-day's journey to Levoca.
Poland Aer Lingus flies to Warsaw three days a week. From there, Kazimierz Dolny is about two hours by road, Torun three hours and Zamosc four or five hours.
The growth in low-fare destinations has been a boom for the economies of many European towns and regions. It has been no less a boom for the independent traveller seeking somewhere off the beaten track for a city break, a long weekend by an unfamiliar sea or a week in some hitherto-unknown corner of the Mediterranean.
With increased mobility and affluence, however, it has been getting tougher to find those unknown corners; at certain times and in certain places it can seem as if all of northern Europe has suddenly descended on your particular patch of the warm south.
But do not despair. For those who can stand only so many English and American voices in the place du marché, who are dismayed to hear yet another innocent Italian backwater touted as the new Tuscany, there are still options.
Eastern Europe was something of a tourism joke before 1989: both John Updike and Malcolm Bradbury squeezed excellent comic novels out of the experience. Fifteen years later and western- European tourists are prepared to head for the weekend to Prague, Budapest, Cracow or the Baltic capitals. There is, however, a great deal more than this on offer in a part of the world where the tourism product has developed faster than our dim perception suggests.
For hundreds of years central Europe shared the main cultural and historical developments of the countries to its west. Forty-five years of communism did not obliterate that heritage, leaving it to be rediscovered by whoever wishes to search for it. Below are just a few tourist sites from the new Europe. There are many more, in these countries and others, just waiting to be discovered by the even mildly adventurous Westerner.
Slovenia
A country that, from a tourism point of view, manages to wrap everything into a national package that includes Adriatic beaches, Alpine meadows, deep forests and rolling vineyards. It is also one of the most advanced former communist states in terms of facilities.
Piran is a beautiful coastal town whose narrow streets, peaceful squares and numerous Gothic churches are jammed onto a narrow peninsula jutting into the Adriatic. The fine central marble-paved square, named after a local baroque composer, Giuseppe Tartini, was formerly the inner harbour. Though crowded in the summer, Piran is a relaxing place to spend an off-season break, strolling through the narrow streets or round the bracing seaside promenades, stopping occasionally for a beer, a glass of red Teran or white Malvasia wine, or the ubiquitous fish and seafood, at prices that attract numerous neighbouring Italians on day trips. It also makes a good base for visits to the nearby commercial resort of Portoroz, the famous riding school at Lipizza - home to the famous white Lipizzaner horses - or Trieste, in Italy.
Slovakia
Prague's massive tourist influx puts the amount of travel to anywhere else in the Czech Republic or Slovakia in the shade. Hence there are many fabulous destinations almost wholly unvisited by foreigners.
Levoca is a splendid walled town with a graceful large square filled with fine architecture. Currently, it is unmolested by any tourists other than elderly Polish parish groups from the nearby Tatra Mountains. Levoca was the home of the greatest Slovak artist of the late Gothic period, known only as Master Pavol, born in 1460. The church of St Jakub contains some of his best work, beautiful wooden carvings that in their human individualisation anticipate the later Renaissance. Beautiful and peaceful, Levoca has two fine hotels, the Satel and the Arkada.
Poland
Warsaw is worth a visit, but it is scarcely one of Europe's most striking capitals. Instead, Poland's wealth lies in its lush countryside and historic smaller towns. It may remind you of a vanished Ireland: here you will find altars bedecked with flowers, nuns en masse - even young ones - and, in remoter parts of the country, a transparently genuine welcome not seen in our country for 40 years.
Torun, an ancient city on the banks of the Vistula, north-west of Warsaw, was a strategic point for the river's valuable grain trade and an important centre of the powerful Hanseatic League. Though originally a Polish settlement, at various stages in its history Torun (Thorn in German), has also been in Prussian hands. It is now a lively student city with a population of more than 200,000. The university is named after the city's most famous citizen, the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, to whom a fine museum is also dedicated.
Torun's considerable wealth attracted merchants, and it is their mansions, granaries and warehouses that constitute the city's greatest attraction. Torun is not just beautiful and atmospheric; it is also a lively spot, particularly in term time, with a wealth of cafés and bars, some of the most attractive in impressive brick cellars with high Gothic arches.
Kazimierz Dolny, south-east of Warsaw, is another Vistula grain town but much smaller than Torun; it is little more than a village. Its charm has long attracted visitors and it has developed a particular reputation as an artists' centre. Historically, Kazimierz was a predominantly Jewish town; the complete disappearance of that community since the Holocaust adds more than a little poignancy to a contemplation of its beauty and tranquillity. A tough climb to the Franciscan church affords a spectacular view over the tiled roofs of the town's most attractive feature, the village square, or rynek, which features a large number of beautiful merchant's houses, the most remarkable of which are those of the two Przybyla brothers on the south-west corner, magnificently ornate testaments to the wealth and taste of their owners of the 16th century. Another old house on the rynek, the Dom Architekta, offers high-quality accommodation in a laid-back style and at laid-back prices.
Although Kazimierz is worth a brief visit for itself, it is also deserving of a longer one as a centre for touring, preferably by bicycle. With the wide, slow, majestic Vistula watering the surrounding countryside, this is a green, peaceful and largely unpolluted rural paradise.
Standing in the spacious rynek in Zamosc, in south-east Poland, one might easily imagine being in north or central Italy. With good reason: Jan Zamoyski, a local magnate, commissioned the town's design from Bernardo Morando, an architect from Padua, in Italy, who built the shady, arcaded central square exactly 100 metres long and broad. Renaissance Zamosc was a centre for traders of many nationalities, including Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Italians and Scots.
More recently, the Nazis considered the town and others like it too good for the Poles and Jews and, after expelling them, planned to settle it with Aryans. Beautiful Zamosc was absurdly rechristened Himmlerstadt, though thankfully not for long.
