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Need a manageable itinerary for Dolomites+ Slovenia + Croatia

Hi !
we are planing our next family trip (july 2019). We have come with a general plan that need tuning. We would fly to and from Venice (direct flights from Montreal). We have 26-28 nights for that trip.

1) flight into Venice (2 nights) . Already been to Venice so we dont need a lot of time there, just want to show the place to the kids .
Rent a car
2) Trieste (1 night)
3) Istria (4-5 nights) : We need central place so we could do daytrip from there, Rovinj Maybe ?
4) Plitvice (1 night) ..should we make a detour to Zadar or somewehre else a bit in the southern part before going there?
5) zagreb (2-3 nights) maybe a daytrip from there ?
6) Road to Varzdin, Ptuz, Maribor (2 nights ?)
6) Slovenia (6-7 nights), we will have to choose two base to see : Ljubljana, Bohinj, BLed, caves, Vrsic pass, julian alps) Anything else ?
7) Road to the Dolomites (stop in route ? )
8) Dolomites (6 nights with two bases..maybe Cortina and Ortisei ? with day trip to Tre Cime and Bolzano)
10) sleep somewhere not too far from VCE (flight is around 13:30) and bring back the car.
11) fly back to Montreal

We have chose , not an easy decision , to leave out the dalmatian coast for that trip. That would mean to rush some places. Since we are travelling in the heart of summer with two kids (7 ans 11) we have to move not too fast.

Should we do the loop other way around (start with Dolomites and end with Istria and Trieste ) ?

Travel would be july 4-5 to agust 2-4.

Thanks !

Posted by
1829 posts

Never been to Croatia and did not spend quite as much time in Slovenia as you are allotting but have done some of the driving on your route. I did the similar trip in reverse but not sure it matters the direction of travel much for your dates. I would expect the end of your trip to be more crowded in terms of tourism than the beginning part speaking of time of year not location.

For the drive from say Bled or anywhere in the Julien Alps I do not think you need an overnight before reaching the area of the Dolomites (Cortina area closer) We stopped in Lienz, Austria for lunch and that is right on your way, the road drives through it. There is not much else of interest without going far off route so Lienz is an obvious choice and a nice town to visit and stretch the legs for a little bit.

Once in Italy another stop we made, just slightly off route was to the pretty alpine lake Pragser Wildsee. That is very worthwhile though hard to time when it is not very crowded there.

Be sure to pickup an Austrian highway vignette as well as one when you reach Slovenia. Also make sure you tell your rental car company before you book your plan of countries you travel to. Unfortunately they don't treat Slovenia and Croatia the same as Italy/Austria.

As to the last night, from the Ortisei area of the Dolomites it is an easy drive to Verona and that is a perfect place IMO for a 1 night stay and close enough (at least for me) to reach VCE the next morning. Verona is a great compact city.
If you have been to Verona before, then look into Padua.

Posted by
1 posts

Spent 7 nights in San Cassiano this September on a hiking trip. Good local bus service to Badi, LaVille, Corvaro & Colfosco . This is a ski area with numerous trails, lifts and gondolas to choose from for hiking/mountain biking. Various refugios open along the trails for lunch or beverage. Stayed at family owned and run Pension Laurin. Nice accommodations and great food. Would highly recommend it.

Posted by
1627 posts

I haven't done an extensive road trip like yours. However, my general advice is that budgeting plenty of extra time to deal with things like road closures, unexpected car maintenance (our car needed a fluid top-up, which robbed us of 0.5 day in Austria), and getting lost is important.

Driving in the Alps isn't like driving on wide, straight freeways in the US. We were unpleasantly surprised that a trip supposedly to take 3 hours (per GPS maps and Google Maps) actually took us 5 hours.

Posted by
6788 posts

Stop replying to this thread, which is old and no longer relevant. OP has about 25 threads going for his trip, probably best to use one of those.

Posted by
5493 posts

I’d skip Trieste and go straight to Istria. We rent a villa with a pool when we go to Istria, usually in the center near Zminj.

It takes us usually a long time in the Julian Alps with our kids as we need to pull over every 10-15 minutes to keep them from throwing up. We like to base ourselves in Bohinj and Kobarid (best hiking for families).