Slovenia and Croatia Itinerary Thoughts

Oops, just found out I can't post to both Croatia and Slovenia pages. Sorry.

Zadar, Croatia was one of my highlights from 10 yrs. ago. The Old Town there and harbor are scenic and friendly. Also, the seafood is some of the best in the world!

Hi Max. This is pretty standard itinerary and will work fine if you want to stick with it. But I can make a few suggestions.

First, you might consider taking the direct train from Ljubljana to Rijeka instead of taking the bus to Rovinj, rent the car in RIjeka, and drive to Rovinj. This is what I did a few years ago (Just a personal bias here: I'm not a big fan of long bus rides and love trains. The nearly 3 hour train ride to Rijeka is pretty in parts.) Since you won't have a lot of time in Istria, the car will help you make the most of it. Driving is easy. When I had two nights in Rovinj, I spent one day exploring hill towns, maybe half a day in Rovinj itself, and half a day in nearby Pula. (Pula was a little disappointing; I have seen plenty of Roman ruins before e.g in Rome.)

Rovinj is a delightful little town, a great base for the area, but it's tiny. It doesn't take long to see the town itself.

If you stay at one of the overpriced park hotels at Plitvice, one benefit is that they are right in the park so you can walk right in - and if you visit over two days, the hotel can stamp your previous day's ticket so you can enter again the second day on one ticket. I've been to Plitvice twice - once I stayed at a park hotel (very basic and as I said overpriced...but convenient) and once at a cheap soba (B&B) near the park. If you will visit over two days (I did too on the first visit) then the park hotel makes some sense.

You might not need to drop the car at the Split airport - I guess some people are afraid to drive in Split proper. (I've stayed in Split twice but somehow never driven there.) The airport is about 45 minutes by express bus from Split proper.

Sounds like a nice trip. Since my husband is from Croatia and I’ve been there a dozen times, here are my thoughts.
Forget the hill towns, especially Motovun. Its heyday is long gone. We were there last June and there were very few artists left, just many houses for sale. Pula is very interesting city. Easy to park and walk around. The Colosseum is smaller than Rome’s but just as impressive and an easier visit. No crowds. Poreć is close by and has parking lots. It’s flat and has a very interesting basilica.

Book your ferries beforehand, one less thing to worry about, go to Croatiaferries.com to see the schedules and the ferry lines. Suggest go with Krilo, more modern, faster. The link will be there.

The last time we were in Plitvice it was free - too crowded now for us but it is a beautiful place.

Love Split, the entire city is a museum. We did a cooking class there one evening and it was really fun. Splitcookingclass.com.

In Dubrovnik we took a tour with Petar of DubrovnikRiveratours (in Rick’s book) to Cavtat which included the mausoleum. We had a tour to Kotor scheduled with them also but had to cancel last minute due to illness.
Also in Dubrovnik try and get to Lokrum island. Short ferry ride, lovely walks, hiking up to the abandoned napoleon fort, swimming if you want, some GofT sights, nice cafe. We always have a fun day there.

On korčula if you want to swim I recommend taking a water taxi to Vrnik. There is one cafe on the island (ask before you go if it is open) or bring a picnic lunch. An FYI - there are no bathrooms on the island except at the cafe/museum. The museum is the old school building which was converted into a hotel (2rooms only) and the cafe. The museum is in the second floor. Worth the few Euro to use the bathroom if you don’t eat there.
You can find a driver to take you around when you get there. In Blato, yes that is the name of the town, there are wineries.
FAMILY PLUG - cafe bar galerija in the old town is owned by my hubby’s cousin. You can bring a pastry and order coffee and sit for breakfast for awhile. Or you can go in the evening for a drink or two. He runs it with his children they all speak English. You want locals, this is the place.

In Split I have a wonderful guide Pero Ugarković, email lignja@gmail. Born there, is licensed, great guide, English very good, nice sense of humor.

Enjoy your trip, Croatia is very laid back and it makes for a very relaxed vacation.

Thanks all.
Cindyag311-We hadn't thought about Zadar. I don't think its in the RS guidebook. But the seafood sounds great- we'll look at it.

Andrew H.- We didn't realize about the train option to Rijeka. We prefer trains over buses also, but this would mean renting a car for an extra day that we don't really need it for. We'll have to think about this. Regarding dropping the car off in Split, I'm one of those people who isn't crazy about driving in big European cities (countryside is ok), and RS recommends dropping the car off at the airport. I think we'll probably do that. And we do plan on staying at one of the Plitvice park hotels for the convenience.

Barbara- I'm surprised about the hill towns in Istria. RS highly recommends them (not that he is the be all and end all !). We thought about Pula and its colesseum, but we've seen the Colesseum in Rome, and were thinking why spend time on this one when we've seen the "big one". But its worth revisiting that plan. And thanks for the other tips, inluding the guides.

Thanks to everyone. This forum is great. I'm always looking at it, whether for this trip or just general advice and insights.

The hill towns of Croatia are not like those in Spain or Italy. In my opinion. If you aren’t into Roman ruins then maybe you should skip Pula. There are so many small towns and islands up and down the coast, too many to see on one trip. Zadar is very nice but so is šibenik. On the coast closer to Istria are Opatija, Lovran, Volosko. Then there is Rijeka which is a large city.
Many people just do the coast and not inner Croatia. The first weekend in September the town of Ozalj has a strudel festival. We’re hoping to get there this year.
Don’t overthink it, just pick a few places based on ease of travel and enjoy!

Max, renting a car a day earlier may mean parking it one more day in Rovinj (maybe free, maybe not - the place I stayed there was about a 10 minute walk from the old town with free street parking). But check rates for one-way rentals for both proposed rental periods. It might not be more expensive to rent it an extra day. I recall in the past checking rates and found that shorter rentals often incurred a one-way drop fee whereas if it was long enough, there was no fee...so it's worth checking. Also check rental rates for Rijeka vs. Rovinj - perhaps you'll find it cheaper to rent in Rijeka anyway, not sure. It is a 10-15 minute walk (slightly downhill) from the Rijeka strain station to the port where I picked up my rental car. There were local buses (and I guess Uber is an option now), but I am used to dragging my small bag around European towns and it was no problem for me just to walk.

The Istrian hill towns offer a variety of experiences. I think I managed to see four in one day though I didn't always spend much time in some towns. Buje is still a working town with some interesting ruins and buildings. Motovun is definitely a big tourist town with parking below the town and you hike up to it. I did find it interesting with beautiful views but didn't do anything special there.

Grožnjan was my favorite town, though it felt very polished, almost like a movie set. There were a lot of artists there but it was all very well kept-up, more of a place to buy things than a real town.

Završje was pretty much still rebuilding when I was there (2015) - pretty empty with a lot of ruined buildings but clearly a lot of investment going on. I wonder what it's like now.

As far as dropping car in Split: I think I would see where you would actually be dropping it in town before deciding whether or not to drop at the airport. I do recall not being prepared when I dropped my rental car (Sixt) years ago in Dubrovnik - the Sixt "rental location" was actually at the Hilton hotel - not clear!!! All I had to do was drop it and leave the keys at the hotel - no one was there from Sixt and I hadn't understood any of this. Now I'm a more savvy traveler and wouldn't have any problem knowing what to do, but at the time it was a bit unnerving. (I also didn't have a GPS or smart phone on that trip!) These days with cell phones and GPS's I would worry a lot less, if you see exactly where the drop location is and can even look at it on Google Maps Street View. If the drop location is still far from your hotel then maybe it isn't going to save you any time vs. just taking the airport bus in after dropping the car there.