Originally Posted by
FlyerTLV
I may have found something more or less compatible with your plans, but it will not work if your flight is delayed or if there is an exceptionally long line at incoming passport control. Here it is:
Taxi from airport to Mestre train station.
Train: Mestre 23:17 - Udine 00:53.
Overnight in a hotel in Udine.
Next morning:
Train: Udine 6:35 - Trieste 7:37.
I assume there is no problem hopping over to Lipica from Trieste.
Arrive at the competition in a state of fatigue wich will likely impair your performance.
I would never take the last flight for an important event. Flights do get delayed or canceled... I really feel you should fly in earlier by an extra day. One night in Mestre or Venice. Spend the day in Venice. Next night in Trieste or Lipica. Arrive at the competition in near-optimal shape. If something goes belly-up with the flights, you will probably get rebooked according to your original plan which will become your inconvenient last resort.
Flying an extra day before means taking an additional day of leave, which is not a good option for me (I calculate the amount of leaves very carefully, a one-day difference can ruin my year plan completely). If I can't go there hassle-free on a Friday I may choose another competition to join instead.
There is a promotion on KL/AF now, and it offers a flight which allows me to arrive Venice half a day earlier (i.e. a night flight) at an unbeatable price, without taking an additional day of leave.
However, the promotion fare is completely unchangeable, gets 0 miles in my programme, and the promotion ends tomorrow. As there is still some uncertainty in the competition schedule (only the date and the place are known, but not the first starting time), I don't think I can make the determination now, and may let the promotion go away. This competition is also not considered a must-go for me as I can choose a different one on the race calendar, which means if there are better competitions on Saturdays that I can go by taking daytime Aeroflot flights on Fridays I would go those instead of this. (Aeroflot offers refundable flights with lots of miles at cheap price, so I can secure a seat even before I make the determination.)
For example, I did a competition in Prague last month on a weekend, by flying on Aeroflot daytime flights on Friday and arriving in the evening, than going to the competition Saturday morning in near-optimal shape. The same for going to Turku and Tampere: flying on Aeroflot daytime flights on Friday, arriving Helsinki in the evening, and take a direct coach there immediately afterwards. After seeing your reply, going to Trieste is SO complicated from Venice airport so I may rather skip this competition and choose another one instead.
Originally Posted by
Perche
There is a bus company called Flix that goes to Trieste from VCE even late at night. Check their website. I below their last bus is after23:00 or something around that time.
The last FlixBus departs at the airport at 21:25, so it is not an option for me.