A little bit of background about my schedule, and why I have to take shorter trips: I work weekends Saturday/Sunday, meaning my schedule is limited to mostly Monday to Friday travel. Last week, I had a full week in Louisville with nothing to do, so I decided Thursday night to book this last minute trip for Monday morning. Thanks to United’s MileagePlus program, the cost of flights to Europe was very minimal.
Getting there
I booked flights via United, with codeshares on Lufthansa/Cityjet and Austrian. Headed out, I chose to go SDF-IAD-FRA-LIU for 40,000 miles and $51.10. The connection in FRA was very tight – only scheduled for an hour – but thankfully Lufthansa has a connection service which saved the day for me and 4 other people also travelling to Ljubljana. This flight was the earliest arrival bookable using Star Alliance, bringing me to Ljubljana one minute ahead of schedule at 934am.
Day 1: Ljubljana
Since you clear passport control in FRA, exiting LJU airport is easy. Once you arrive, there’s multiple options to get to the city: taxi, shuttle, or bus. I took the bus service, provided by Arriva. The bus only takes cash and was about 4 euros each way. There are two bus routes from LJU airport: one to Bled, and one to the city centre. Somehow, I accidentally boarded the bus to Bled instead of the one to Ljubljana city centre. My mistake turned into a blessing: Bled is beautiful. There are two buses from Bled: one that stops on the way to Ljubljana city centre at the airport, and one nonstop to the city centre. I took the nonstop to the city centre, and it took about an hour from Bled due to traffic, finally getting me to Ljubljana at around 2pm.
I purchased the Ljubljana tourist card online and loaded it to the Urbana app, which gives you free bus rides and free entry to most attractions in the city. For 24 hours the card is 41 euros, but do the math to see if you’ll save money buying this vs paying individually for attractions. I strongly recommend NOT using the mobile app for this. You can pickup a physical card at the Ljubljana tourist information centre or on arrival at the airport. My mobile card never worked and caused a lot of hassle until I went and switched it out for a physical one – apparently it’s a common issue. While waiting for my hostel check in to open, I walked around Ljubljana and visited a few museums included in the card. My favorites were the Ethnographic museum, which had a super cool exhibit on time, and the Modern Gallery. Ljubljana is a small city, and you can walk to pretty much everything on the Ljubljana pass within 15 minutes, or take the bus included in the pass. Many of the museums are located on the same block, which makes it convenient for seeing as many as fast as possible.
For my night in Ljubljana, I stayed in a hostel with tents on the roof at the Ibis styles Fuzzy Log for $60.18. I enjoyed the uniqueness of the tent arrangements, but it got a little hot especially when the sun was up during the evening and early morning. Once the sun came up, I decided to head out and finish exploring the city. My favorite stop of the 2nd day was the House of Illusions, which had fun optical illusions and even an upside down bathroom! The castle was also really fun with the funicular ride up to the top. There’s many different viewpoints from the castle, but I unfortunately was running short on time so I didn’t get to explore them all.
My next stop was the FlixBus station, where I figured I’d miss the bus to Budapest. Fortunately for me, the bus was delayed from 335pm to around 4pm. I had a little bit of time to spare, so I hopped over to the Lidl supermarket Nextdoor and got a baguette and liter of water for the ride. I also got kinder eggs for my friends back home in the states and some magnets at a souvenir shop nearby. The bus stand was a little confusing and hectic as 3 different flixbus routes arrived at the same time. They use gates 29 & 30, which isn’t marked very clearly. I booked the Flixbus to Budapest for $39.98. We were scheduled for a 5h 55m ride but ended up arriving closer to 1030pm due to the delay. Luckily I had no seatmate for this trip, and I didn’t pick my seat in advance or reserve an extra seat.
Day 2: Budapest
After a pretty calm but long bus ride, we arrived into Budapest Nepliget station around 1030pm. I first tried to get the local subway app, but it was too complicated for me to figure out at that hour, so opted to get a single journey paper ticket at the kiosk. The bus station is very convenient – it’s attached to the subway system by only a set of stairs. The subway ticket was around $1.48. I waited no more than 5 minutes and was surprised how clean everything was onboard the subway and in the stations. I boarded towards the city centre, getting off after about 10 minutes right by the Cathedral and only had to walk 5 minutes from the station to my hotel, the Hotel Central Basilica. This stay cost me $98.32, the most expensive of the trip, but also the nicest. The room was nice and included toiletries air conditioning. I dropped my backpack off and headed back out to explore the area and ended up getting some nice night pictures of the local sights. Similar to last night, I was pretty exhausted and lots of places were closing by the time I headed back out around 1130pm, but a few blocks away I found a 24/7 kebab shop which was amazing for $7.38. I got back to the room, showered, and finished booking stuff for Kosice (every night I would work on the next day’s itinerary).
I woke up around 9am and got ready to finish exploring. I took my backpack with me, but I probably could have left it with the hotel to save some energy as I walked around a good bit before the Flixbus to Kosice. Given the time crunch, I opted for an Aldi lunch which was pretty good for $3.10. I first headed to the cathedral again, which was a lot busier in the daytime, then walked over to the parliament building which is so beautiful! I met some nice people from Pakistan while helping them take pictures and was strongly encouraged to visit, maybe later this year! I also walked by the shoes on the river and then realized like yesterday, I am once again short on time so raced over to the nearest subway station, which was the one I arrived at last night. I took the same line for $1.48, though during the day it was standing room only. I got to the bus station just in time to see it was delayed (seeing a trend here with FlixBus) and I had about 10 minutes to grab a liter of water. This FlixBus to Kosice was scheduled to leave at 1345 and arrive at 1725 for $30.98, about 3h 40m. We left the station about 15 minutes late with 3 people including myself, then stopped at the airport and picked up another 5 people. Similar to the bus to Budapest, I didn’t reserve a seat or an extra seat yet was lucky to have 2 seats.
Day 3: Kosice
We arrived only 30ish minutes late around 6pm. My hotel, The Penzion Horse Inn, was a short 10m walk from the bus station and cost me $75.58. I honestly could’ve just skipped a hotel this night and saved money, but it was nice having a shower and a bed for a few hours. I dropped my backpack and went off exploring. I spent about an hour sitting watching the water show in front of the national theater and old town hall. Sunset brought amazing lighting for photos of St. Elisabeth’s Cathedral and I continued exploring. I found a lovely spot for dinner with the best burger I’ve had in a long time for $17. I walked some more and realized just how beautiful Kosice was! Unfortunately it started sprinkling, which eventually turned to heavy rain/graupel so I went back for the night.
Heading home
I booked KSC-VIE-AMS-IAH-SDF with United again for 44,000 miles and $107.41, and unfortunately the weird Austrian connections were the earliest out of KSC that would get me home by Friday night. Airport check in was a breeze as KSC is pretty small, but they surprisingly had a lounge which accepted Star Alliance Gold members and Priority Pass, along with a few other programs. My flight from KSC-VIE was quick and uneventful and I even had time to get a few minutes nap. I had a pretty tight connection in VIE but managed to stop in the Austrian lounge for about 3 minutes. VIE-AMS was a little different – we sat at the hard stand boarded for about 30 minutes before taxiing out for takeoff which got us in to AMS around 20 minutes late. This was not a super long connection, and the delay didn’t help. AMS is pretty big and you have to exit the EU, so it requires passport control. I got to my United gate right just as they were starting preboarding, and got on with no issue. I arrived in IAH only a few minutes late and dodged the late afternoon thunderstorms heading back to SDF, getting home on time.
Damage report
I definitely could have planned cheaper things to do or found cheaper accommodations, but I’m happy with what I ended up doing for the short amount of time I was in each city.
Summary
This was a really fun trip, but a fast paced itinerary. I wish I had more time to explore the three countries, but I have a feeling I’ll be back to some of them soon for longer!