I haven't flown very much on Europe's LCCs, although I did once sample KLM's "buzz", which if I've got my history straight was bought by and absorbed into Ryanair a few eons ago. In true LCC style, there was no jetway, so we clambered up the stairs and I snagged a window seat not too far from the front door. Somewhat to my surprise the flight was almost full, with most pax being Brits out for a weekend of cheap booze and not a few quite intent on getting plastered before the plane even landed. Pushback was precisely on time and the plane injected itself into an endless stream of Ryanairs, bounding to the sky and onward for the surprisingly short 1:40 hop across the continent to Ljubljana. (Helsinki is almost twice as far away!)

The guy next to me had had a couple of beers himself, but another fellow a few rows back had had a couple more and had to be semi-restrained by his friends from wandering about too much. At one stage, he left his wallet in the toilet, and the very British steward didn't miss the opportunity for a little public embarrassment: "Mr. Blanky Blank, you've left your wallet in the bathroom, but there's no money inside? That's a bit tight innit, going on vacation with no cash, wot?"

Sooner rather than later, the A319 ducked into the cloud cover and emerged into a space of mountaineous green, little castles and church steeples atop all the hilltops. We flew past what was probably Klagenfurt's airport on the Austrian side and, a few hills later, landed smoothly on Slovenian soil.