Flying around Europe… and eventually the world!
I’d arrived in Zurich on a Croatia Airlines flight from Split and had just under four hours in the Swiss airport until the last leg of Snoozing to Split. This final flight was with Helvetic Airways, operating on behalf of Swiss, from Zurich to London City Airport.
Having spent four days on trains, making my way across Europe to Split, I had decided to take a faster and much easier way home, fly! However, being the off season, direct flights from Croatia’s second city to the UK were limited and so the journey home would be two legs, flying via an intermediate point from the journey to Split, Zurich.
Snoozing to Split had been a marathon rail trip across Europe, with 10 countries passed through, five trains, four intermediate cities and four days, however at around 2200 on Monday 8th January, I stepped off the final train of the trip and onto the platform of Split’s main railway station. Having started the day on a sleeper train between Zurich and Zagreb, waking somewhere in western Slovenian, I was ready for bed and so enjoyed a short stroll through the quiet streets to my hotel to end the day.
After just a few hours exploring the Croatian capital, Zagreb, I was back at Zagreb Glavni kolodvor (main station) ready to catch the final train of Snoozing to Split. This journey would take me across the majority of Croatia from the capital in the north to the coastal city of Split in the south. HZPP (Croatian Railways) operates just a couple of trains on this route each day, with my departure named the ‘Marjan’.
Of all the cities I visited whilst on my Snoozing to Split trip, Zagreb was the one that I had the least time to explore. With my sleeper train from Zurich arriving into the Croatian capital 40 minutes late, I had just four hours to explore, eat and make it back to the station in time for the final train of the day to Split at 1518.
Since taking my first trip onboard the Caledonian Sleeper in November 2020, I've become a firm fan of travelling by sleeper train. Not only is there the efficiency of travelling great distances whilst you sleep, there's the romance of falling asleep in one place and waking up in somewhere new and exciting! Having recently travelled from Brussels to Zagreb by sleeper trains, I thought I'd share with you some general thoughts and tips that may come in use if you're planning on travelling across Europe by sleeper train.
Flights & Times 