Firstly I’m going to apologise for using ‘Kosice’ henceforth, digging out the special characters keyboards on the phone and iPad is just not a game I want to play constantly! For a place almost nobody has ever heard of, Kosice has had a few mentions here and there in the trip report forum recently, mostly with people passing through.

This weekend I’m off on a four day trip booked due to what was an irresistibly cheap fare to use as a weekend filler. Of course being a cheap fare comes with certain ‘challenges’. This itinerary is three flights out and three flights back the first and last flights are on Eurowings and the middle four are on Austrian airlines, all in economy. I’ve never flown on either airline so that’s going to be interesting. The total fare was a a fraction over Ł200, working out at Ł35 a flight.

Hopefully my Lufthansa Senator status is going to come into play and get me into a couple of lounges and also a bit of group one boarding along the way. From what I can see online Eurowings doesn’t offer lounge access in Newcastle but it does offer lounge access in a number of its destinations. Priority pass to the rescue in Newcastle. I think I’m covered by the SEN status for Düsseldorf. The connecting times in Vienna are pretty short so I’m not sure I’ll even have time to think about going into a lounge there.

As far as seating goes, the Lufthansa status allowed me to book exit row seats on all four Austrian flights but there was no chance of booking on the Eurowings site until check-in opened at which point it cost me the princely sum of Ł4.62 to book an exit row seat,

Another first for me, I’ve never been to Slovakia either so it’s all new this weekend.

I have to say, having looked up how to pronounce Kosice properly, to my rather childish mind It sounded like I was questioning whether the bovine had defecated, Eh?

Yeah, yeah, I know, too much waffle, so what’s the plan?

• Tomorrow, noon-ish it’ll be off to the airport and then a 3 pm departure to kickoff the. NCL-DUS-VIE-KSC trio, arriving KSC at around 11:30 pm,

• The hotel for the weekend is Hilton Doubletree which, quite scary, is the #1 Hotel in Kosice According to TripAdvisor! All on points so it really is a bargain basement weekend.

• Saturday is a guided walking tour in the morning and then a fill in the gaps wander in the afternoon. The temperature is going to be brutal so there will be plenty of stops for hydration along the way!

• Completely by lucky happenstance there is a rather unusual event taking place on the Sunday so most of the day is carved out to attending that - you’ll just have to wait to see what it is.

• And then on the Monday back to sunny Newcastle having checked out of the hotel around 3 am with the first fight being 6 am. The same itinerary on the way back with enough time in DUS to play hunt the Lieberkase.

I think that sums it all up nicely, Only one thing left to add…..

Next stop: Newcastle airport in about 20 hours time.

We had a very pleasant visit to Kosice after it was declared European City of Culture in 2013. Based on the Doubletree thread, it was 2017 before we made it. We enjoyed it.

Following along. Košice is very much on my agenda so this should be interesting.

Been there somewhere around 2018 or 2019, in November, as far as I remember. Pleasant city, and if you have enough of it, you can always catch a Flixbus for a day trip to Budapest

Just in time for a Friday read! Safe travels, can't wait to see what Sunday has in store.

Ahhh... another Japes weekend coming up. I was beginning to go into withdrawal 😉

Please, do not expect too much about the VIE Austrian Senator lounge. On my trip to Berlin and back it was the worst lounge compared to FRA or ZRH. I don't know how the Business Class lounge is.

Been there about a month ago on my way to Croatia and can agree and disagree. It's an effective space, but no bells and whistles. But they had a Leberkase! Business part is far bigger and toilets and showers are inside. Also, the business part has more working cabins. Would say the food and drinks are almost the same, so it's rather up to traveller where to go.

If I do make it to the VIE lounge it’s going to be a flying visit so to speak, transfers both directions are sub 1 hour. I’ve couple of hours in DUS each direction so that’ll be lounge time (hopefully). Now I know they had lieberkase I might be tempted to rush a visit if I strike out in DUS

The location of the lounge will not help here. Unfortunately it's quite a walk from some gates, and a floor up, so expect about 10 minutes one-way to get there. But if you will have time for a Leberkase, go for it.

If the lounge has no Leberkäs, you can head out of the secure area to the bakeries or the REWE supermarket in the arrival hall, there you'll find it for sure! The airside bakeries in DUS are an expensive dissappointment in my experience. Security in DUS is easy these days, especially with fast track access.

Finally, he’s on the move again!

Bon voyage!

I’m off! Standard start to the trip with an Uber to the airport. It is absolutely heaving at the moment. And then, checkin to collect the boarding passes that Austrian airlines resolutely refuse to issue and first failure of the trip there is no check-in for Eurowings!

after parading up and down the Air port for three turns I decided that I wasn’t going blind. There really wasn’t a euro wings check-in so I gave up and asked a very very helpful chap outside of the Tui check-in who suggested that they might well open behind him, we shall see.

Online check-in via Eurowings doesn't work? LHG/*A codeshares are often quite chaotic with checking in. Also annyoing that LH group happily sells connecting itineraries between their different carriers but Eurowings is the black sheep that often has separated check-in counters and systems.