Itinerary suggestions Slovenia, Trieste, Italy, Croatia

Hey Renee,

You can drive from ljubljana to Trieste. It's about an hour and change and set up an itinerary for 18 days like this:

Day 1, 2, 3 Sleep in Ljubljana

Day 4 Sleep in Trieste

Day 5, 6 Sleep in Zagreb

Day 7, 8 Sleep in Bled

Day 9, 10 Sleep in Trojir

Day 11, 12, 13 Sleep in Split

Day 14, 15 Sleep in HVAR

Day 16, 17, 18 Sleep in DUBRONIK. Return rental car and fly out.

RJean - why would they go back up to Bled on days 7&8?

Skip Trieste and spend more time in Slovenia and Croatia.

I don't think they plan on skipping Trieste. According from their post, they plan on spending a night in Trieste.

It might have been cheaper/easier to fly into Venice and go immediately to Trieste for the first night, so you wouldn't have to backtrack from Ljubljana to Trieste - assume flights are already booked?

Assuming you will fly into Ljubljana, and that you have 17 nights (18 days), here's how I might do it:

Ljubljana (3 nights)
Train to Trieste
Trieste (1 night)
GoOpti shuttle to Rovinj
Rovinj (3* nights) Rent a car (day trips to Pula, Istrian hill towns)
Plitvice Lakes National Park (1 night)
Sibenik or Zadar (1* night) - maybe side trip to Krka National Park for 1/2 day
Split (2 nights) Drop car on arrival
Korcula or Hvar (2 nights)
Dubrovnik (2 nights)

Dubrovnik is small - you don't actually need a lot of time there, unless you are doing day trips. But you could steal the night I added in Sibenik/Zadar if you want one extra night in Dubrovnik (it is your departure city so the last day is probably shot) or a night from Rovinj, which itself is tiny, but you may want to spend the time exploring hill towns in the Istrian interior or perhaps see the Roman ruins in Pula. If not, you could cut a night from Rovinj.

I left out Zagreb because I'm personally not a fan, and because you will be in Trieste, it's a long way back to Zagreb. But, you could go from Trieste to Zagreb (trains, connect in Ljubljana again) and do two nights there instead.

Be prepared for a steep one-way drop fee for a rental car picked up in Slovenia and returned in Dubrovnik. Sometimes the fee is acceptable, but check into it. Could be hundreds of euros extra. I have given you the option to do avoid that, but you could ignore my option and just rent the car in Ljubljana and return in Dubrovnik as planned. (Try Sixt.) You could also rent a separate car in Slovenia, drive it to Trieste, drop in Koper, take a bus or GoOpti shuttle on to Rovinj, and rent another car there. Or skip the car in Slovenia entirely. You can day trip to say Lake Bled easily by bus, and you don't really want a car in Ljubljana itself. Might not want one on Korcula/Hvar, either.

You could visit say Mostar, Bosnia instead of doing the island stop. All up to you.

Flight are already booked for trip...thanks everyone for your suggestions.

If you have any favorite car rental companies in Slovenia and Croatia would love to hear them.

Also and favorite places to stay? We used air bob in Italy and had great success.

Any favorite places to eat?

This is our first trip to this area..so totally new for us and would love to hear suggestions.

Thanks everyone!

Also I realize Zagreb is a bit out of the way....also don’t want to pay those extra fees for dropping off a rental car in another city...one thought is to rent a car at airport once we land in Ljubljana and use it for a week to visit Slovenia and Trieste. Then drop off car back at airport in Ljubljana and take train to Zagreb and continue through Croatia from there....thoughts?

Train-bus from Ljubljana to Zagreb is easy, inexpensive, and a good approach. We are Zagreb fans. I'd plan on at least 1 full day there. There are 2-3 days of activities. We have been 4 times and still have not gotten to the main cemetery nor the botanic garden.

We rented from Enterprise on the last trip, but the days of poor rental experience are, in my opinion, in the past. You should be able to book from the USA before the trip.

There's no need to rent a car at the Ljubljana airport. You can pick up a car in Ljubljana proper for the same price, and you really don't want to deal with parking a car in Ljubljana with its large pedestrian-only areas if possible. It's doable, but you have to find lodgings with parking or close to one of the big parking garages. I'd take a bus or shuttle in from the airport. (don't really want to drive after a long flight anyway, do you? Jet lagged? Not sure where you are coming from.) Spend a day or two in Ljubljana, then rent the car as you leave. There are advantages in having a car to explore parts of Slovenia. For example, I love the scenic drive from the town of Skofja Loka through the mountains via Jamnik and Kropa down to Bled - very beautiful. But if you just want to get up to Lake Bled, very easy to do by bus - don't need a car for that.

If you want to visit Zagreb, then yes, dropping the car in Ljubljana and taking the train to Zagreb is practical.

In the the past, I've rented from Sixt (both in Slovenia and Croatia) and would use them again - they are a big international company. (Sixt's downtown Ljubljana office is in the train station, and the town is small enough that that's not a long walk from the center.) Last time I was in Slovenia, I used a company called AvantCar, which was fine - I'd use them again. Slightly cheaper than Sixt.

You might check out the one-way drop fee with Sixt from Ljubljana to Dubrovnik just for fun, on their website, to see how much it would be. Perhaps it's not as bad as I am predicting. Or it could have been reduced from the past.

Thanks for info...we are coming from Colorado...so it will be a long flight/day.

Do you know about driving into Trieste, Italy? What do I need to know about driving over the border? Parking, etc??

Seat 61 has an interesting way to get to Trieste from Slovenia https://www.seat61.com/venice-to-ljubljana-and-zagreb-by-train.htm see Option 2, using the historic tram from Trieste to Villa Opicina. At that time, the tram wasn't running, a bus was substituted, however, I saw something recently that indicated the trolley may be running again. We took this way so we could stop in Divača to visit the Skocjan Caves.

I didn't actually drive to Trieste. I've driven in Slovenia a few times. The first time, in 2011, I got slightly lost near the Italian border and realized I was in a traffic circle right on the border! I kept driving around it...now I'm in Italy...now Slovenia...now Italy LOL! I wasn't far from Trieste, but nowhere near the city.

Trieste seemed like your typical noisy Italian city. I'm sure driving in the city is doable if you are used to driving in foreign cities, but it wasn't something I wanted to do. But I found driving in Slovenia and Croatia otherwise very easy. Driving into Dubrovnik has been the most stressful of all of my experiences there, actually

There is no controlled border between Slovenia and Italy (there still is one between Slovenia and Croatia, but that is supposed to change at some point in the near year or two). My bus from Ljubljana to Trieste was stopped at the Italian border so they could check passports - took about 20 minutes. But they weren't stopping individual cars.

I've never driven through the Slovenian-Croatian border, either. I do know that some small checkpoints can be used only for EU citizens - so be careful when following you phone or GPS's shortcut across the border! Stick to the major highways.

Driving in Dubrovnik is very difficult. Due to the hill, it has few roads. They are all 1-way. So if you miss your turn, you must go a long way to do the whole loop again. We were in that situation one night where our drive, from Sarajevo, was unable to find the little turn-off to our sobe. It's far easier to walk than drive. Similarly, in Split, there are easy driving parts, and dreadful parts. The old city is not fun. That really goes for anywhere in Europe with a portion of the town built in the pre-auto time. Streets are small and not straight. There is no parking. When we have had a car in Europe, we use it only for between-city driving. Within a city, it's simply not fun, and things happen fast.