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7-10 days road trip Croatia. Help need

Hi ! We are planiong our july road trip. We will have a 26-28 nights road trip Around Italy, Slovenia and Croatia.

We have some quetsiuons about the croatin part. Since our time is limited to 7-10 nights we have to make some though choices. One of them was to exclude Dubrovnik since is out ouf itinerary.

In those 7-10 days we have plane to see : Istria, Plitvice, Zagreb, Verazdin.

Questions:
1) waht would be the best base for a family in Istria ? Rovinj seems to be nice but some says that there's too much people. Since we will have a car we dont have to be in a very central place.
2) is 4-5 nights in Istria too much ?
3) Rovinj and Pula are Mandatory. Anything else ? Cres island maybe ?
4) We dont know what would be the best way to do our loop: Dolomites-Slovenia-Croatia or Croatia-Slovenia-Dolomites ?
5) Would the crowd and heat be much different at the begining of july and at the end of July for Istria ?
6) Do we have time to go to Split and/or Zadar ?

Thanks a lot !

Posted by
28069 posts

I don't think 4 or 5 nights in Istria is too much. I would add Porec and a short stop in the little coastal hilltop village of Vrsar. Plus some time in the interior at Motovun and Groznjan. I don't remember whether you're traveling with children, but I remember seeing a zip line in the interior; I think it was at Pazin.

Since you will not get down to Dubrovnik on this trip, I think it would be great if you could squeeze in Zadar. Not having been to Pula, not having had a car, and not having any interest in beaches, I don't have a good feel for what is possible. Most of the Istrian towns are quite small, but you'll need to find a place to park the car and then walk to the historic area. You might go to Google Maps and zoom in on the map of each town to get an idea of how much ground you might want to cover. It's usually fairly easy to get a decent sense of the historic area--typically the area with a convoluted street layout.

But I would prioritize proper positioning for the Plitvice stop, meaning be sure you are there the night before your visit.

Posted by
4961 posts

1) Depends on if you want lots of dining options. Nowhere is very big in Istria, and nothing is very far. Choose according to your accommodation and food wishes.
2) No
3) Istria is full of hill towns. You could probably drive over to Cres as a day trip, or stay a couple nights, but that might make getting to Zagreb, etc. more difficult.
4) Don't think it matters much, unless you need to be somewhere for departure.
5) Don't think there would be an appreciable difference, maybe a slight increase in crowds through the month.
6) Maybe?