London to Pula... by the pretty route

Last week, I mentioned my dilemma - how to get to Pula by as interesting a route as possible, given a series of limitations.

Jane Leaper kindly suggested;

Train or fly to Venice then seacat ferry to Pula.

If train: Eurostar to Paris and overnight sleeper to Venice.

although this did mean doing the Alps in the dark, which missed the point a little.

I did give more serious thought to the the Zurich/Innsbruck/Ljubljana route, but the fourteen minute connection in Salzburg was just too tight for my taste, so I've settled on the following;

• Lufthansa flight 4U2379, departing Stansted at 20:10, arrives Stuttgart at 22:35

• overnight at the Holiday Inn Express Stuttgart Airport

• S-Bahn 3, departing Stuttgart Airport at 09:08, arrives Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof at 09:35

• EuroCity 113, departing Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof at 09:58, arrives Zagreb Glavni at 20:55, via Ulm, Munich, Salzburg, Villach, Lesce-Bled and Ljubljana

• overnight at the Palace Hotel, Zagreb

• Croatia Airlines flight OU674, departing Zagreb at 14:10, arrives Pula at 16:00

Alright, it is a forty-six hour journey, but it will be a bit of an adventure. And adventure is good sometimes, isn't it?