Kalamata is one of the two best cities in the world. Zurich is the other one. This is a post about how to find a cheap connection between Zurich and Kalamata and a public note for my future self.
Desired properties/limitations
- The trip must take place within a specific time interval (e.g. school holidays).
- Avoid cars or buses.
State of the world
- Kalamata has no train connections.
- Zurich is well connected.
- Night trains from Zurich go to cities that also have airports.
Proposal
- Find all Kalamata airport arrivals within a week.
Assumption: Kalamata is a small airport. Not too much work. - Keep a note of the (departing airport to Kalamata, day of the week) pairs. Filter out departing airports that are far from Zurich.
Assumption: By looking at the arrivals within a recent week, we can find most of the airports that have direct connection to Kalamata. - On flights.google.com, enter all the airports that have departing flights to Kalamata on a specific day (e.g Monday) as origin. The date should respect the day (e.g. Monday) and be close to the beginning of the interval we want to fly. Put as destination Kalamata. Try with one-way tickets or choose as return date the same day of the week as the departure date.
Assumption: (a) Airplanes go usually A -> B -> A, so if we have a departing flight on Mondays, we also have an arrival flight on Mondays, connecting the same airport. (b) The schedule of the flights is somewhat regular. - Repeat the process on step (3) seven times, each one for the different days of the week.
- Take note of the 2-3 best options you have found.
- Refine the list from step (5). For return tickets on step 3, if an airport has flights to Kalamata in multiple days of the week, you can try also those as return days.
Assumption: This step is not as thorough as the previous ones. - Check for train connections. Don’t forget to consider the night trains by visiting https://www.nightjet.com/#/home. See also: https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/nightjet.htm
- Book train tickets at the beginning of the intended vacation period, accommodation until the flight to Kalamata, and similarly for the way back. At the end, we should cover the whole intended vacation period.
- Enjoy a few days in a hopefully new European city + an amazing stay in Kalamata!
Experimental results
Following the above process, I found that the tickets Zurich -> Vienna (by night traing), Vienna -> Kalamata (by airplane), Kalamata -> Paris (by airplane), Paris -> Zurich (by train) were quite cheap and also allowing to visit two other nice European cities for a few days.
Conclusion
Zurich, and a big part of Europe in general, are very well connected by train. This allows a lot of flexibility in choosing airports. This works great, when someone is in mood of vacation and happy to explore cities.
Unremarkable thoughts 