Places to Visit in Eastern Europe
 

In April 2020, a friend and I will be heading east on a pair of Honda CRF250s from the UK to Ulaanbaatar Mongolia... or Vladivostok, depending on whether I can persuade him to do a bit more. We have put aside 6 months to do the round trip including the return through Russia. My plan is to travel down through eastern Europe to Turkey and then over to Iran, up through the 'stans and on to Mongolia.

We know that there are several places that we really want to visit, the standard bucket list of sights, but they are mainly eastward from Turkey. What I am looking for is a list of really interesting places to visit in eastern Europe that we could visit on the way down; places that aren't the usual tourist traps, that are off the beaten track but inspire the mind and the heart. The plan is to keep off the main roads and complete a few legs of the Trans Euro Trail.

The countries that we will be passing through will probably be (but are not limited to): Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and then into Turkey. We're already planning to visit Chernobyl and the Woodpecker nearby as well as Odesa but those are just in Ukraine... we need more!
Can anyone help? TIA.

I'd skip Belarus purely on the fact that you need to arrange a tourist visa for it at the embassy, which is a headache. Every other country in your list, you just show up at the border with your passport.

In Ukraine, I'd say Lviv and Kiev at least. Odessa definitely worth a stop. But if you aim for Lviv before Chernobyl, you will be going through Katowice and Krakow in Poland, which should be worthwhile.

In Romania - the big famous sites are the Transfagarasan road and Brasov with the nearby Bran Castle. I'd also recommend the Turda salt mine as a must-see on a road trip. But there are lots of great light-trafficked roads elsewhere in the country, e.g. the Semenic and Cheile National Parks in the southwest (aim for the Bigar Cascades for example). Bucharest worth a stop as well, go to the giant government palace, and take a walking tour for the mix of 19th century Paris and 20th century Eastern Bloc architecture.