November travel planned

[jawnbc]

Well my itinerary including WAW and RIX has been scuppered. Air Baltic is dropping its RIX-ATH service, and that make its both cumbersome and too expensive. I could just do Warsaw, but I really want to squeeze the most out of any European trip, especially given the long flight and concomitant jet lag.

I'm considering:

1. YVR-X/FRA-BUD
2. Sleeper train Budapest Sarajevo
3. SIA-BEL
4. BEL-ATH (I'd do a sleeper, but they all end in Thessaloniki)
5. ATH-X/FRA-YVR

Work would pay for into Budapest and out of Athens. The rest is out of pocket for me, I figure around 500$ for all transport including taxes. Hotels for 70€ or less also seem doable (no hostels, but a basic hotel room is fine by me). 

Another option, though, would be:

1. YVR-X/FRA-ZAG
2. bus ZAG-Sarajevo (train service sucks, apparentl
3. SIA-BEL
4. BEL-ATH (I'd do a sleeper, but they all end in Thessaloniki)
5. ATH-X/FRA-YVR

If I do this I could probably give a workshop in Zagreb, and they would pick up my hotel expenses for their. And it wouldn't be vacation time for me (2 days, though I've got buckets of it).

OR, I could do this:

1. YVR-X/FRA-BUC
2. train Bucharest-Sofia
3. SOF-ATH (I'd do a sleeper, but they all end in Thessaloniki)
4. ATH-X/FRA-YVR

Which reminds me: must email the conference organizers again to see if my paper is accepted.

Thoughts? Experiences with these places (Budapest, Bucharest, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Sofia)?