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Rovinj to Piran

On 9/20/19 we are trying to get to Piran from Rovinj. Because rental car drop off fees are very high we are looking at public transportation. It doesn't look like ferry is an option on 9/20/19. Flixbus shows 5 busses a day to Portoroz from Rovinj then according to Rick Steves you can take public bus from Portoroz to Piran. If anyone has used this itinerary or have other suggestions I would appreciate any feedback or recommendations.
Thanks

Posted by
208 posts

Hi.

You don't say how many of you there are.

Looking on Rome2Rio, it suggests the bus option will take about 3 hours and 10 minutes. Not including the time you are waiting on the initial bus.

Or, you could pay to hire private transport. https://mydaytrip.com/landing/piran-to-rovinj?ad_adgroup_id=46103540059&ad_campaign_id=913197961&ad_creative_id=216986250941&ad_device=c&ad_match_type=e&ad_network=s&ad_position=1s1&ad_source=google&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq97L9srX4QIVvyCtBh2QeQNvEAEYASAAEgLJDvD_BwE&imageId=1&utm_content=B&variant=B. That apparently would take about 1 hour. (This is just what I found by looking it up. I haven't used it).

The more of you there are, the more cost effective the private transport, I would presume.

If it were me, I would take the private transport. But I value my time/lack of stress pretty highly.

Where are you staying in Piran? I would avoid Max's. He confirmed our reservation, and then decided (because we apparently were the only folks staying at his place that night) to just blow us off, and disappeared, leaving us to wait at his front door a couple hours before we finally gave up on him. Worst couple of hours of what otherwise was a delightful Slovenia/Croatia/Bosnia trip. This was in May--a shoulder season like September--so you would also be at risk.

Posted by
6733 posts

It's been some years since I did this (so some details may have changed), but yes, it should be possible. I did it when I switched rental cars at the border, to beat the huge drop-off fee. We went the other direction (southbound); dropped our car in Piran and caught a small bus to Rovinj (after a day and a night there in Rovinj, we picked up our 'Croatia car' there, then continued on). A few things I would suggest you be careful about...

  1. There was no bus station of any sort (that we could find) in Piran, just a bench with a small bus sign by a pull-off. We had plenty of time to kill so we eventually found the spot to wait, but it was not immediately obvious. Allow some time to find it.

  2. There was no way (at least that I had found) to buy tickets in advance, and we just barely made it on the bus, because when we got there, there were a few people (locals) already waiting for our bus. They boarded ahead of us, and we got the last 2 seats on the bus. If there had been more people waiting ahead of us, we would have been turned away and stuck there. That would have been highly problematic, because...

  3. When we were there (May) the bus did not run every day. If we had failed to make our bus, the next bus wasn't for a day or two, which would have caused the rest of our trip to collapse like dominoes. I hadn't really expected bus capacity to be an issue (luckily it wasn't for us, but just barely so). I figured if we missed the bus we would take a taxi but that would have been super-expensive. Check bus schedules carefully for when you will be there - outside of "high season" (generally, but not always, defined as June-August) Croatian bus and ferry schedules may be very sparse (some routes go less frequently, some stop entirely). In late September, I would expect "high season" frequencies for transport to be just a distant memory.

We were there about 5 or 6 years ago and some things have undoubtedly changed since then (tourism in Croatia has exploded in recent years...thank Game of Thrones fans for at least some of that). If it were me going, I'd carefully check and double-check all the schedules, timetables and availability of guaranteeing a seat. Good luck and have fun.

Posted by
151 posts

Nothing to worry about, it is easy. There is almost hourly bus service to Portoroz from Rovnj, local service to Piran is good also.