This 9-Day European Tour was undeniably the travel experience of my life so far. Let me take you back to March 2022.
Discovery and exploration were high on the agenda, using local trains and intercity buses to cover a whopping distance. Finding green travel methods can be less convenient than the super-polluting planes our society is accustomed to and certainly more expensive but boy, let me tell you, it was mighty special actually seeing the countryside and towns whizzing past the window.
Inspired by greener travel, we swore to only travel by trains or buses once arriving to the European continent. Leaving hot and sunny Croatia, to see snowy slopes as your train snakes through Austrian mountains, and watching the sun rise over the Italian Riviera and then over the Bulgarian border from the same bus’s windows are experiences you cannot replicate with an airplane.
The 9-Day European Tour Outline
In brief, we took the plane from Edinburgh to Madrid and then started our European Tour adventure. We journeyed across the continent on a bus for 46 hours to reach Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. After two days, we took an overnight Flixbus to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Spoiler Alert: what a change of pace! From Zagreb we took a train to Maribor, Slovenia and enjoyed the delights of this small but cultured place for a day. Next on the itinerary was a three-train-and-a-bus voyage to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia and finally, the following day, a large train took us to our final destination: Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Two days later, we flew home to Edinburgh and so completed our European tour.
6 countries stayed in overnight, 10 countries physically stood in, 8 countries had a beer in. An experience never to forget.
For the specificities and costs, read on!
Journeys Voyaged and Pennies Spent
I am both flabbergasted and fortunate to confirm that we experienced no delays, interruptions or cancellations to our planes, trains and buses throughout the entire trip. We also succeeded in not missing a single leg. Narrowly on occasion, but succeeded nonetheless.
By Air
I shall start off nice and simple, with the flights. In short, a nice early flight to Madrid, leaving us the whole afternoon and evening to enjoy in Spain and an early evening flight coming home, tired from 9 jam-packed days, and still leaving us the morning and some afternoon in bustling Budapest.
Edinburgh to Madrid – 18 March 2022 – 08:40 to 12:25 – £200.68
Budapest to Edinburgh – 27 March 2022 – 19:10 to 21:05 – 46994.00 HUF (£110.19 paid)
Booked with Ryanair, for two adults, we opted for one cabin bag each in addition to the standard ‘personal bag’ permitted in the aircraft. We packed light 😊
Nothing much of interest to note about these flights, thinking back. The pilot made some humorous comments during the flight out, and everything went smoothly. Jolly good. The flights are certainly not the stars of this tale. No sir.
By Land
Here’s the good stuff. The green and gratifying stuff. We booked all but one of our land transports on thetrainline.com and whilst I do work for the company, this is not paid (or otherwise) advertising. You can book train and bus tickets for many European carriers and they offer several languages, so it is often simpler than navigating the carriers’ own native-language sites. You can also buy tickets for multiple carriers at the same time.
Author’s tip: journeys booked involving more than one carrier aren’t always guaranteed in the event of a cancellation or delay of the previous carrier, so please always check your T&Cs and book flexibly, or accept the consequences.
Union Ivkoni Bus from Madrid to Sofia (46 hours)
19/03/2021 – 10am Departure- 21/03/2021 – 9am Arrival into Sofia, Bulgaria – £157.72 for two
46 hours travel time including time differences. It was a crazy mad rush to catch the bus, which was due partly to our timekeeping and McDonald’s breakfast pitstop and partly to do with Google Map’s incomprehension of underground vs surface level directions. Let me explain.
From this Google Maps image, it looks like the bus station is just there. Contrarily, it is not. Upon reaching this point in the city, there was just large buildings with no doors and a dual-carriageway with fence in between the two sides of the road. No signs, no indications, no bus stop:
It wasn’t until I spotted the metro sign highlighted in yellow (remember, we were looking for a bus stop, not a metro stop) and I saw it was called the same name as the elusive bus stop, that we hedged our bets. We sprinted into the metro, down the escalators and found ourselves in a large centre underground with shops, metro services… AND BUS STATION SIGNS. Running madly, we came upon a police officer whose hands reached immediately for his firearm due to our mad appearance and I yelled to him the number of the bus stand we searched for, gesticulating wildly at the bus station signs. Thankfully he understood instantly our intention and escorted us to the correct place. It was right at the back of the ‘station’ and somehow outside?? Geography and orientation are not my strong suit but even so… this was just barmy.
The bus driver and passengers looked perplexed at our chaotic arrival because they were still chatting and chilling. Meanwhile, we were busting a lung trying to not miss the damned thing. The coach set off a teensy bit later than planned but they were pretty laid back about it and our arrival made no difference.
The driver did not speak English, Spanish or French: the three languages I speak well. With the help of one passenger (we were only perhaps 10 on the large coach) who spoke a very messy combination of French, Spanish and Italian (I have a conversational level), I was able to glean some basic information along the way (such as driver comments or instructions).
Otherwise, it was a pretty calm and peaceful bus ride. No other passenger could communicate to us well as they mostly spoke Bulgarian from what we could ascertain and it seemed they were travelling via bus due to a lack of passport. Seemingly in Europe, it is possible to travel by land across countries with a National ID card only and passports are only required for flights or sea travel. They seemed shocked we had chosen purposely to do this 46-hour bus ride when they saw we carried passports. I’m not saying we will choose it again in a hurry, but it was a pleasantly surprisingly good two days.
The Route
This is the route the bus took. We went through four other countries on our way from Spain to Bulgaria: France, Italy, Croatia and Serbia. Only a handful of people got on/off the bus along the way:
We kept ourselves well-fed with service station food, although we had to watch our liquid intake as we were acutely aware the bus had no toilet. Or it did, but it was closed for ‘COVID’. The driver did stop every 3-4 hours for 5-20 minutes at a time for toilet breaks.
Boarded by the intimidating Gendarme at the Spanish/French border to check passports, I had the chance to stretch my legs and take in the Pyrenees which I had never seen before. One side was snowy and then as the bus continued past the Fort du Portalet, the sun shone on the mountains. I wouldn’t mind a chance to come back here and explore on foot.
Sleeping on the bus was a challenge, especially on the winding Italian roads but it was worth it so see the beautiful red sunrise in Liguria. The photos from the bus certainly do not do it justice. We stopped at a service station just coming into Italy and I got a pretty nice shot of the almost-purple hue of the sea due to the red sunrise mixing with the blue waters.
The border to enter Slovenia was almost non-existent and from our bus seats we could see lovely buildings in different colours, along with the Slovenian single-towered churched with colourful tops. We waved a temporary goodbye to Slovenia as we’ll see it again in a couple of days (read here), and we descended from the bus for the Slovenian exit border, then again for the Croatian arrival border. It’s a bit of a pain by bus, it has to be said. The toilets in between these borders were borderline theft. We felt scammed. It was 0.70€ and there wasn’t even a toilet! A hole in the ground was looking back at me. A hole in the ground. For 0.70€. Eurgh.
Entering Serbia was the same rigmarole as Croatia, in terms of the getting on and off bus multiple times for the border. Never having been to Serbia, it was quite disappointing that it was night time and therefore we could not see anything out the window. However, the driver pulled in at a fancy-looking service station which was more like a restaurant. Ultimate excitement for this new and unexpected country. Thankfully they accepted euros and my partner and I enjoyed some chicken soup, and a hot plate of chicken (?), cheese and mashed potatoes. T’was fab. I also managed to sample a Serbian beer too, more about that later. People were smoking inside the restaurant which wasn’t fab but hey ho.
Back onto the bus and it was baltic. So cold. But our spirits soared with anticipation as, once again, we saw the sun rise elegantly over the Bulgarian hills just past the border. We’d done the proverbial Hokey Cokey in terms of getting on and off bus at the border, we were weary from travel but worked up for our destination country. We actually arrived slightly early into Sofia, which was awesome. And so our exploration began! Read about it here in Volume Three.
Flixbus from Sofia to Zagreb (not booked on Trainline):
22/03/2022 – 10:50pm Departure – 23/03/2022 10:30am Arrival – £48.98 for two
This journey was decidedly less interesting. It was very simple. We arrived on time, no dramas this time thank goodness. It was a 12-hour journey to Zagreb with a couple of stops along the way but we mainly stayed on the coach and tried to sleep in our reclined, reserved seats. Didn’t get much shut-eye, as you may have guessed, but enough to be getting along with. After all, this was our ‘accommodation’ for the night and we were looking forward to a new capital city the coming day.
ÖBB Train from Zagreb to Maribor
24/03/2022 – 7:25am Departure – 24/03/2022 10:09am Arrival – £56.39 for two
Again, no dramas or issues. No delays and we were on the correct train. Showing our documents to staff/police who boarded the train at the border to check things was no hassle. Seeing the Croatian and Slovenian towns pass the window was great, despite the early hour. We noticed that outside every train station in Slovenia we seemed to pass, there was a de-commissioned/statue of a steam engine.
Three Trains and a Bus from Maribor to Bratislava
25/03/2022 – 7:40am Departure – 25/03/2022 14:05pm Arrival – £43.88 for two
7:40am – 7:55am ÖBB Train from Maribor to Spielfeld-Straß Bahnhof
8:30am – 9:20am ÖBB Train from Spielfeld-Straß to Graz Hbf
9:26am – 12:02pm ÖBB Train from Graz to Vienna
12:50pm – 14:05pm RegioJet Bus from Vienna to Bratislava
We had gone from sunny Zagreb and Maribor and now we were seeing snowy Austrian mountains through the train windows. Fantastic. I was munching on my leftover Croatian frogs’ legs and we were playing cards. Lovely wholesome journey. The 6 minutes changeover time between trains in Graz was quite stressful but it went swimmingly and without a hitch.
In Vienna we had about 40 minutes between transports, so we went for a small walk to say we’d seen a wee bit of this city too. The buildings were tall and so you couldn’t really see anything except the street you were in that stretched for miles, everything looking the same. We decided to stop at a small café instead and come back to Vienna and explore its centre. I had a small Austrian beer to add to my country list and then it was back on wheels to get to Bratislava.
ÖBB Train from Bratislava to Budapest
26/03/2022 – 9:57am Departure – 12:20pm Arrival – £57.10 for two
After the three changes the previous day, it was nice to have again the direct journey. I ate my leftovers from Bratislava, with some snacks bought from the platform as we journeyed to our final destination: Budapest.
Besides the Madrid Madness, there was no drama and it was a wonderful experience traveling by train and bus across Europe. We printed our tickets off in advance to avoid any confusion and/or roaming issues.
I can’t wait to tell you some tales from our European Tour travels once arrived to those cities, check out my future Engrossing Europe volumes!
