Travelling from Trieste to Croatia

Here’s our guide for the assorted options you can use to travel from Trieste to Croatia. You should consider flying to Trieste if you’re intending on travelling to some of the more northern (coastal) regions of Croatia, such as Istria or the Kvarner region. It’s also not a bad place to fly to if you’re trying to reach Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, as there’s daily early evening bus services that take just over four hours.

There’s also a bus service all the way to Dubrovnik. However, it is a long, overnight journey, and there are better ways of reaching that part of Croatia. (If you want to fly to Italy to reach Dubrovnik, you should definitely consider flying to Bari instead.)

NOTE: Trieste is called Trst in Croatian.

Travelling from Trieste to Croatia
The Piazza Unitá d’Italia in Trieste

Travelling from Trieste to Rijeka by Bus

There are several buses a day from Trieste to Rijeka, with a journey time of only about 2 hours. The services are run by Flixbus – you can find timetables on their site from where you can also purchase tickets. These Flixbus buses generally start in Venice, stopping at Venice Airport (and sometimes Trieste Airport too) although some of them originate from further afield in Italy, such as from Florence, Bologna, Turin or Milan, or even from Lyon in France.

Buses depart from the main bus station in Trieste, situated at Piazza della Liberta 11 (next to the main railway station).

Should you need it, for a timetable of buses from Trieste Airport to the main bus station, see the the website of the bus operator APT Gorizia. This page on their site lists details of timetables; under the heading “Servizio Aeroporto”, you will find a PDF showing times for bus line G51 which sees buses running from “AEROPORTO Trieste Airport” to Trieste.

Airport buses run pretty frequently, but do watch out for buses that only operate on particular days e.g. Mondays to Fridays, or Saturdays only. Buses from the airport to Trieste take about 50 minutes.

Travelling from Trieste to Pula by Bus

See timetables on the Trieste Bus Station website. Some of these buses stop at other Istrian towns along the way, such as Buje, Buzet, Porec and Rovinj. Not ALL do, so please double-check timetables!

You can also find bus times on the websites of the Croatian bus companies FILS and Brioni which operate the buses. They also provide online booking of tickets.

Buses depart from the main bus station in Trieste, situated at Piazza della Liberta 11 (next to the main railway station).

See above (under “Travelling from Trieste to Rijeka by bus”) for details of how to get from Trieste Airport to Trieste Bus Station.

Travelling from Trieste to Zagreb by Bus

There are now several daily buses from Trieste to Zagreb operated by Flixbus. Journey time is around 4 hours.

Travelling from Trieste to Split or Dubrovnik by Bus

There is no longer a direct bus from Trieste to Split or Dubrovnik.

If you’re trying to reach one of these two cities from Trieste, we would recommend travelling down the Italian side of the Adriatic to Ancona (for Split) or Bari (for Dubrovnik) instead and then getting a ferry across.

Flights from the UK to Trieste

  • Ryanair Flights from London Stansted