Airport to Use after Best of Eastern Europe

Venice is surprisingly inconvenient to reach from Ljubljana (unless you're OK with a bus), and catching an early flight from Venice airport is not easy if you stay in the city.
Zagreb is the easy/quick choice, but if you have a bit more time, Munich is also an option that you could consider. Direct trains take about 6 hours from Ljubljana/ Lake Bled to Munich but it's a pretty ride, and Munich airport has many direct flights to the USA.

I was on the Best of Eastern Europe trip in October.

I flew from Ljubljana to Munich, had a brief layover and then flew to Chicago. See if you can get a flight to Munich, a major airport that might have a flight to Pittsburgh.

Some members of my group were planning to spend a few more days in Italy after the tour. Maybe Milan, which is also a busy port, would have a flight to Pittsburgh.

Venice is very convenient and often offers great connections to the US. I flew to the US from Ljubljana in October - took a morning GoOpti shuttle van from the Ljubljana train station to Venice Marco Polo (VCE), about a three hour trip. There are direct buses to VCE from Ljubljana too but there were none that arrived at the airport to give me enough time to feel comfortable having enough time to make the flight. GoOpti is a shared shuttle service (private rides cost a lot more) where you can pick an arrival time and offer you a window of possible pickup times. Say you need to get to VCE by 10am. They might offer you pick-up between 5-7am, arrival by 10am. Maybe others want to go at 5am so they'll pick you up at 5am and you'll just get to the airport a few hours early. They tell you the exact pickup time the day before. GoOpti is well regarded by Slovenes.

Anyone who has used GoOpti before can give you a referral link to save 5 euros off your fare and a 5 euro credit for them. (I'd offer you mine...but I doubt I would ever use the credit again, maybe someone else would want it.)

If you are interested in seeing Munich, the direct train to Munich departs Ljubljana at 9:23 in June and is a nice easy trip. Buy tickets 2 months or so in advance for a good discount.

Your most popular non-stop flight from Europe into Pittsburg is on British Airways thru London Heathrow.
British Airways flies out of Venice, and we once caught a late morning flight to London.
You can also fly from Zagreb and Dubrovnik (seasonally) to Heathrow on British Airways.
Croatia Airlines flies from Zagreb to Heathrow too.

Any flights out of Ljubljana will require you to make two connections (or more) to get home.

You have lots of options which is nice. I wanted to point out that an overnight layover at LHR isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can stay at the Sofitel Hotel right at terminal 5. It breaks up a long travel day, eliminates some of the stress about “making your connection”, and you usually have time for a nearby “field trip” like Kew Gardens or Windsor.

Thanks for the replies!

I have read about the Go Opti Shuttle, and I’m glad to hear positive feedback on it from someone with first hand experience. It does seem like a good way to get to Venice, because the trains seem rather limited. It looks like we could take a flight leaving early afternoon, around 1:00, so that would give us plenty of time to get to the Venice airport from accommodations on the island. And we can fly directly to Philadelphia from Venice before connecting to Pittsburgh. So some points in Venice’s favor, I think.

Zagreb is closer to Ljubljana, but I worry that the connection time at Heathrow is pretty short, about 90 minutes? There’s even a red letter warning about it on the AA website. Could any frequent flyers advise on that aspect?

We hadn’t thought of Munich, but it also has some reasonable itineraries to Pittsburgh. We’ve been there before, but not ruling out a return. I guess it would be a longer train journey but doable.

Originally we had considered a day trip to Salzburg after the tour, but ruled it out because of travel time and distance. Now that we could possibly fly home from Salzburg instead of Ljubljana, it’s back on the table. But it’s a 6:30am departure with connections in Frankfort and Charlotte before arriving home in Pittsburgh. So not a great itinerary, but would give us a chance to get to Salzburg.

Thanks again for your feedback:)

Carol, just saw your response about the layover at Heathrow. Definitely something to consider, it’s maybe not a bad thing to have a nights rest between flights.

When I did this tour, I took the train from Lesce Bled station to Salzburg for an overnight visit (about 4 hour train ride). Then I took another train to Munich (1.5 hours) and stayed overnight before flying home. As noted earlier there is a direct Bled-Munich train if you want to go straight there. Another option is to fly home from Vienna (several on my tour did this).

Barbara, there's nothing wrong with heading on to Munich or Salzburg or something after Slovenia if that's something new for you that you might enjoy. But I see that your tour has on a few nights in Slovenia at all - just two nights in Bled? You might consider more time in Slovenia. Ljubljana is not big and there isn't a ton to see, but it's a lovely city, especially at night. I think it's my favorite city in Europe: it's charming but small and not super touristy. I love Slovenia, so maybe I'm a little biased, but if you wanted to add time you could always spend more in Slovenia before heading home. There are some neat small towns and more natural beauty e.g. Lake Bohinj, which is much larger and less developed than Lake Bled (both are wonderful just different). Driving in Slovenia is easy if you would want to rent a car, but you can get to a lot of places quite easily by bus as well.

VCE is a great little airport to depart out of...unless you are departing the same day a cruise ship or two is dropping off near Venice. Then I understand it can be mobbed. I was lucky - I breezed through security and immigration in about 30 minutes total (including stopping for 15 min for food in between them) - no cruise ships dropping off that day, apparently. So you might check that. (There are websites that let you check cruise ship schedules. They can't dock in Venice proper anymore so check Ravenna too now.)

We took the train from Bled to Vienna. As I recall the scenery from the train was beautiful.

Are you sure you’re able to change the departure city? That would be truly unusual flexibility for AA—against normal policy around schedule changes, actually.

I wonder if they might have meant you could change your connecting city to something other than London. but BA would be the only AA partner flight from Europe to PIT.

Are you sure you’re able to change the departure city? That would be truly unusual flexibility for AA—against normal policy around schedule changes, actually

Yes, that was the information the representative gave us on the phone. She called it a mis-connect. And she made a note on the flight record that it was permissible, since we weren’t ready to commit to a re-booking with her at that moment. I guess we’ll find out for certain when we call back to make the changes.

Barbara says they were told they could change their departure to a different airport, since the schedule change was so significant. The next agent they talk to, if they choose to change, should confirm that.

If you want to use this as an opportunity to extend your trip and spend time in Ljubljana, Salzburg, Munich, or Vienna, now is your chance. We have done the train trips between Munich and Bled, and between Ljubljana and Vienna, and I can verify that the scenery is very nice, especially in Austria. So maybe a night each in Salzburg and either Munich or Vienna? Or one in Ljubljana and then on to one of the other cities?

Or perhaps you are satisfied with the suggestion by Carol now retired to stay with the current changed schedule and spend the overnight in the Heathrow Sofitel, with a daytime visit to Kew, Windsor, or other spot. We will be doing exactly that after our trip next September to the Dolomites—-flying out of Bologna at noon one day, overnight at Heathrow at the Sofitel, and British airways flight to Seattle the next morning. No stress.

I chose this option because we had such a bad experience with Venice airport after our Dolomites trip this past September (2022). We love Venice, but we never go in the summer due to crowds. But it was so close, and so tempting to have an afternoon in our favorite city and fly home the next day. Our afternoon and evening were indeed lovely, as we know how to avoid the crowds. I booked a hotel close to Piazzale Roma to make it easy to get to the airport, without battling crowds on the vaporetto. (I don’t care for the Alilaguna at all).

We arrived at the airport 2.5 hours ahead of our noon flight and it was chaos. The check-in desk was vastly understaffed (only one person working) and the very lengthy line was not moving at all. The security line was equally daunting. After 15-20 minutes of standing still, we decided to ditch some items and re-pack into our legal carry-on bags and head straight to security with the boarding passes on my phone. But the gates into the security area would not open with the boarding passes, and there was no staff available to help. After another 15-20 minutes of frustration, I got the gate to open with one of the passes, but then it wouldn’t let my husband through. Finally a staff person arrived at the security help desk and he went to explain the problem. They let him through and we finally got to the boarding gate, only to find our flight was delayed. We went back upstairs to the café to try to buy some food for lunch but the line was moving slowly, as the place was understaffed. Just as we neared the front of the line they called our flight for boarding, so we gave up.

After this experience my husband said we aren’t using Venice airport ever again. That’s OK—I prefer to travel into and out of Venice by train.

We always stay at LHR Sofitel flying to and from Europe.. Another plus is their excellent dining room, Le Belle Epoque. Make reservations in advance of arrival at hotel.

Barbara says they were told they could change their departure to a different airport, since the schedule change was so significant.

Lola, I read the original the original post carefully before adding my comment. OP does not report, as you claim, that she was told they could change the departure airport. Only the less specific “different airport”.

Barbara, I hope I’m wrong, but sounds like you’ve got a good ‘roll with it attitude’ towards the situation. Before you call back you might want to look at alternative OneWorld routings still departing from Ljubljana. Or be ok with the London overnight.

“We can can change our return flight to a different airport without penalty”.

Since she is here looking for a departure airport other than Ljubljana, I read her statement as stating specifically that they have the OK from AA to change the departure airport. But perhaps she should clarify that with AA. Or maybe she is now content with the Heathrow overnight layover and doesn’t need to change anything.

Yikes Lola, that sounds like an awful scene at the Venice airport! I can see why you will avoid it in the future!

Thanks again for all of the thoughtful responses! We’re continuing to reflect on the options, and certainly will confirm the information we received the other day with the next agent we speak with at AA. Regardless of our route home, I’m sure it will be a great tour and a memorable trip! And judging by current air travel trends, this may not be the only curve ball we receive;)

If you're leaving from Bled and not Ljubljana, Munich and Vienna are both good options in addition to Venice and Zagreb.

We took the train from Bled to Vienna. There is a Moxy hotel at the airport that is very handy and very reasonable. We were familiar with Vienna, this hotel and the flight options were ok.

It was a bit challenging figuring out where to take the train from the Vienna train station to the airport-but other than that, it was easy. It's easy to get around Vienna on the train. If you have time, you could even take the Flix bus to Bratislava. The buses operate frequently right from the airport and it's only 30-45 min trip each way. The train from Bled to Vienna goes through beautiful scenery as another poster mentioned. Go first class, which isn't expensive-- I would recommend this on any train in Europe.

If I did this tour again, I would just fly from Ljubljana. Why? It's a beautiful town and worth some extra time . The time you get to spend in Lake Bled on the tour is ample enough. We've had a long (overnight layover) for Heathrow a few years ago--we loved it. Took the Heathrow express to town, stayed at the Marriott and ran around London for a day. We viewed the layover as a bonus. Something to consider if you haven't been to London.