I'm doing some searches for early next September. I'm settled on starting my trip in Dubrovnik/Montenegro and working north. I found one flight connecting in Munich on Lufthanse at a little under 12 hours, another a little under 13 hours and a bunch of choices longer than one day.
I can live with 11 1/2 hour duration but 25 plus hours sounds like hell.
How are people here getting there? What is your flight duration and where are you connecting?
I have flown to Croatia from DC a few times, and I fly to the vicinity each May. 12-13 hours is about the best you can hope for.
Munich/Lufthansa has consistently been a pleasant low stress airport/provider. You do want at least an hour and a half for the plane change though.
Try Austrian Air also.
I can’t help on flights as I live in the UK. I don’t know where you are visiting, but in September, I would start north and head south, as you stand a greater chance of seeing better weather.
Brad,
The Lufthansa options sound pretty good.
Another thing you might try is checking plus or minus 3 days on either side of your current departure plans to see if there ard different options on other days of the week.
When I went on the Adriatic tour a number of years ago, the flight options were really limited. I flew home from Dubrovnik about 10 years ago and the best option I found was DBV -VIE - IAD on a combo of Croatia Air and Austrian, but the flight was not available everyday.
The other thing you might consider is a flight to London with a couple of days there and then a discount flight to Dubrovnik.
Thanks for the replies. I am also considering a flight to European city then connecting with a European carrier to Dubrovnik.
The thought behind going south to north is the ocean related destinations seem to close up by later in September, so I was thinking it may be better to visit there first. One option is finishing in Venice. I've been there once and really liked it in October.
The basic idea - at the moment - is to fly directly to Dubrovnik in early September, see Montenegro and work up the islands by ferry to Split, work further north by car then over to Plitvice, loop up through Ljubjana and Lake Bled, back through northwest Croatia dropping the car in Pula and ferrying to Venice.
A friend, who has apartments in Vicenzo, suggests considering a train from Venice to Milan and flying home from there.
If you have the flexibility to do that, it is probably your best option.
Hope you have at least three weeks, sounds like a great trip!
Just under three weeks has been the plan since I spent all of April in Spain a few years back. Now my boss gets mad when I ask for four weeks. I've been approaching it as two full weeks including weekends on either end, then fudging an extra day or two on either side to get the best flight deals. Usually ends up as flying out on a Thursday evening (after work) then fly back on a Tuesday (and back to work on Wednesday), something like 19 nights in Europe plus one on the plane en route. That's a big reason for not wanting to lose any more time than necessary to flying there and back.
Then you are all set, lucky you!
Have a look at the website skyscanner for your "major European airport to Croatia" leg, as most low cost carriers are listed there. Some of those smaller companies like RyanAir and such do have strict baggage weights though so just keep the in mind.
