6 cities in 10 days - Doable?

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Planning my summer holiday with my other half, we first looked at interrailing; but I soon realized you pay £300 for a ticket that allows you to pay £20 to get between cities, whats the point when intercity trains in central europe cost about 15 euros?

So plan is now to :
Fly to Bratislava early on the Sunday or Monday, stay there one night and then:
Get the train to Vienna and spend two nights there
Then get the train to Budapest and spend 3 nights there
The bus to Zagreb and spend 1 night there before
Getting the bus to Ljubljana and spending two/three nights
Then Bus down to Pula and spending one night before flying back home from Pula airport on the Wednesday night.

We enjoy walking, looking at architecture and modern history, and local food, lots of it. Don't care for most guided tours or art/ancient history/plays/orchestra etc.

Just wondering if anyone has done similar, what they would recommend and also if any of those cities are worth an extra day or maybe one day less.

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UnclePat said:

Good stuff

Thankyou for this, very useful. Just been reading about lake bled so I think we will camp at lake bled for a night or two fly out of Ljubljana instead of going down to Pula.

We actually visited Zadar last year! Flew into Zadar and spent two nights (including a kayaking trip in the paklencia national park - amazing), got the bus down to Split, spent a night and then got a ferry to Hvar and stayed for 4 more nights there. Then flew back from Split airport (which is a terrible airport).
Been to Dubrovnik and Montenegro before too, the Adriatic coast is my favourite place on earth.

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Thanks guys, plan has changed again!

• Flying into Budapest on the Tuesday,
• Train to Bratislava on Friday (just a stop over really)
• Train to Vienna Saturday
• heres the new exciting part! Train from Vienna to Zagreb Monday, on the Semmering Pass:

• Train from Zagreb to Ljubjlana Tuesday

Then either

• hire a car and drive to bled for Wednesday night and then the airport Thursday
• or use buses instead...

Anyone have any experience with the buses around Ljubljana and Bled?

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I forgot to update this after the holiday!

So, it was a brilliant time, cant think of many things I would've done differently...

Flying in to budapest...transfer bus is bit of a pain as you have to change halfway through, but its included in the travel pass so not bad.

Budapest - Loved it, glad we had the 3 days there. Can't really think of any faults.

Train to Bratislava - Quite dull scenery wise, but nice train.

Bratislava - finished it, and the nearby castle in a day. Very pretty and cheap but I wouldn't stay more than a night.

Train to Vienna - Meh again, quite busy at this point

Vienna - Very clean and lots of pretty buildings, but didnt blow me away. guess I'm not really into what its best at. Mum loved it when she went which confirms that!

Train to Zagreb - Utterly gorgeous scenery, lovely train. Had a meal on the train whilst it cruised along side the Sava in rural Slovenia, something i will never forget.

Zagreb - Compact and a bit tatty, and I really liked it, very chilled out place with plenty of bars and restaurants. I'd say its a 2 night city.

Train to Ljubljana - Very pretty, train less impressive

Ljubljana - Surprise of the trip, amazing place with so much to do, I'd recommend a long weekend here.

Lake Bohinj - Maybe the most beautiful place I've been? So quiet and peaceful considering the scenery, which was a good contrast to:

Lake Bled - Idyllic yes, but very touristy and busy.


TLDR: Visit Ljubljana, Lake Bohinj and Budapest Immediately. Using the train to get around lot of different european cities works really well.