A decade ago few of us would have been familiar with far-flung eastern European destinations like Brno in the Czech Republic or Kosice in Slovakia. But what should you know in advance of jaunting around the background of Eastern Europe?

If you’re still inclined to do the new Europe on the cheap, here’s a 12-point guide.

1. Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, has the highest number of trainee supermodels per capita in eastern Europe. Local men play a game called Bratislavan Tennis, where they sit outside the cafes and watch all the beautiful ladies walk past, their gaze going back and forth, as if watching a Nadal vs. Federer rally in a Wimbledon tennis final.

2. Sky Europe Airlines is Slovakia’s native low fares airline and it paints giant pictures of Slovakian supermodels on its aircraft, such as the Wonderbra girl Adriana Karembeu, making it Europe’s most beautiful airline. Surprisingly, the Adriana aircraft was even used to ferry Pope John Paul II on his pilgrimage around Slovakia.

3. There are two things to do in the town of Medzilaborce, which lies in the east of Slovakia, just 30 miles from the Ukraine — one is to visit their Andy Warhol Museum (Andy’s parents were from the town) and the other is to visit their new Tesco store (which currently draws more visitors than the Warhol Museum).

4. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary once said: “Who wants to go to Gdansk? There ain’t a lot there after you’ve seen the ship yard wall.” But there is certainly more to this Polish port than Lech Walesa and Solidarnosc. There is even a bar called Roosters, modelled on the US Hooters chain, where nice Polish girls in tiny red shorts and tight t-shirts with pictures of ahem, cocks, dispense pitchers of beer to blokes arriving on Ryanair flights.

5. When staying in Kaunas, Lithuania, you can watch a programme on television called Miss Captivity, which searches for the most beautiful female inmate in the country’s prison system. The most recent winning contestant won €750 but she will not receive the cash until after the end of her four year prison sentence.

6. The newest attraction for stag parties going to Riga, capital of Latvia, is gun tourism. You can visit a former Soviet bunker and hire an AK-47 gun and let off a few live rounds just for fun. Much like flying on Ryanair, however, you must bring some ID, such as your passport. Otherwise, you will be left firing blanks.

7. The Hotel Riga, in the city centre, is the country’s first four-star hotel with its own in-house strip club, named Dolls. In the absence of meaningful licensing laws, the nearby Flames nightbar is open from 7pm to 7am.

8. The nicest pedestrian bridge in eastern Europe is the glorious Charles Bridge in Prague, which was begun in 1357, on 9th July at 5.31 am, giving it a so called lucky number sequence of 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1. In the bookshops of Prague, you can buy books by an upcoming Irish female author named Cecelia Ahernova. No, really.

9. The signs at Passport Control at Sofia Airport, Bulgaria, say: ‘No Payments are accepted.’ The city’s airport magazine contains some Bulgarian phrases which are useful to know when visiting Bulgaria, such as (and I am not joking), ‘Good Morning’, ‘Good Afternoon‘, ‘Good Evening’, ‘Write me a ticket, I am not going to give you any cash’, ‘I love you’ and ‘I want to marry you and bring you back to the United States’.

10. All of the Communist era statues in Budapest, Hungary, have been moved 15kms out of the city to a field called Statue Park, which is a Communist Disneyland of multi-tonne concrete socialism. They have a little Trabant motor car, too. The souvenir shop sells coffee mugs with a red logo in the style of Starbucks called Redstar coffee and if you are brave you can buy a replica Soviet army medal.

11. The lasting legacy of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is a government administration building in Bucharest called the Casa Poporului, which is the second biggest building in the world, after the Pentagon. There are 1,000 rooms but the tour guide tells you, ‘We will not visit all the rooms on this tour.’ Thankfully.

12. Take care when dining in Ljubljana, the beautiful value-for-money capital of Slovenia. My menu featured fillet of foal and there is a fast food chain called|Red Hot N’ Horse that sells horse meat burgers. Ljubljana is an ideal destination if you really think you can eat a horse, but for me this was a non-runner.

Paul Kilduff’s Ruinairski - More Bloody Cheap Flights Eastwards with Mick is published by Gill & Macmillan, €12.99

- Paul Kiduff