Balkan Trails Avis 127

Country and trip interesting.emphasis was one seeing everything rather than taking time to linger in places where people were involved, so that we could appreciate how people lived,worshipped and relaxed.Our guide tried very hard to please non-standard clients, and he succeeded.

Very knowledgeable guide, kept car clean each day and was flexible and agreeable to whatever we wanted to do. Val was our guide and very polite and helpful in accommodating us with our luggage, changing money, finding good restaurants, stopping whenever we wanted, gave a nice guided tour of each town we stayed in. and helped us get settled in our hotel each night. He was also very prompt in picking my wife and I up each morning. We enjoyed having dinner with Val each day. He was very knowledgeable about the best restaurants.
Our tour went as outlined and everything was organized and went according to schedule. My opinion is that Balkan Trails is an excellent company. They kept in touch and delivered everything as outlined. This is a company that I would recommend. They kept on top of everything and when I booked late they substituted a very satisfactory hotel in place of the one normally used that was booked out. It was nice having the various fees prepaid.
I think it was Black Tie Taxi that took us from the hotel in Bucharest to the airport when we departed. It was a first class taxi and had us at the airport right on time.
Allen Poulson

We enjoyed our 12 day highlights trip of Bulgaria and Romania. The usual problems of foreign travel were largely eliminated. Hotel check-outs, transportation, entrance fees, etc were all preplanned or taken care of by the guide quickly. Two of us had our own guide/driver and we were taken to many important historical sites and cities. We have travelled in western Europe without a guide many times but this trip was definitely better with a guide to help see harder to find places. Bill and Jeannie Early

If you really want to see the country and meet the people who live and work there, a small personally-guided tour is the way to go! There were only three in our group along with our Balkan Trials guide, Adrian, a native Romanian. Adrian quickly got a feel for what really interested us, and he delighted us with his narrations of the myths and legends of Romania. We met several farmers along the way and even stopped our car to talk to them with Adrian interpreting. We got to go where the "natives " go and eat where they eat, etc. We especially enjoyed our home visits with the gypsy family and the Egg Craft lady and her family.

We went to two castles, a monastery, the city of Brasov, and also saw beautiful scenery. Our guide, Florian, had excellent English and was very knowledgeable about Romanian history. The car ride was comfortable, we had a great lunch in a scenic spot, and felt we got to know a lot more about Romania by being in the countryside. I would recommend a private tour to anyone, much better than a bus trip with hordes of people. Balkan Trails handled all the arrangements efficiently.