Hungary

Budapest is two cities in one — hilly, historic Buda on one side of the Danube, flat, buzzing Pest on the other, connected by iconic bridges. The thermal baths are legendary (Szechenyi, Gellert), the ruin bar scene is one-of-a-kind, and the Parliament building lit up at night is one of Europe's most beautiful sights. Exceptional value.

Central Europe's largest lake, 77 km of warm shallow water that Hungarians without sea access have claimed as their summer beach. The Tihany peninsula juts halfway across with its 11th-century Benedictine abbey and lavender fields, the south shore is wall-to-wall family resorts (Siófok, Zamárdi), and the north shore is wine country: Badacsony's volcanic basalt vineyards, Balaton-felvidék uplands, and the Festetics Palace at Keszthely. Trains from Budapest reach Balatonfüred in about two hours, and the lake never gets deeper than 12 metres so the water warms quickly in June.

A baroque town of 53,000 in northern Hungary that punches above its weight: Eger Castle, where Captain István Dobó and 2,000 defenders held off a 40,000-strong Ottoman army in 1552; a 40-metre minaret left from 91 years of later Turkish rule, the northernmost in Europe; and the Szépasszony-völgy (Valley of the Beautiful Women) just outside town, where a horseshoe of 50-plus rock-cut wine cellars pours Egri Bikávér (Bull's Blood) for the price of a coffee. Two hours east of Budapest by train, an easy weekend with cobbled streets, the country's second-largest basilica, and Habsburg-era thermal baths.