Where to spend two weeks pre Danube river cruise

What time of year are we talking about?

You can get from Ljubljana to Munich by train in just over 6 hours. A bus (comfortable) is about an hour faster. Two weeks would be enough for a nice visit to Slovenia, which is very small. You could probably even extend into northern Croatia to see Zagreb and/or Istria. I returned to the US from Zagreb in 2015, so I think you might find that city to be a workable starting point.

Northern Italy has so many wonderful possibilities--far more than two weeks' worth. Places like Venice, Padua, Vincenza, Ferrara, Verona, the lakes and the Dolomites. The Dolomites are an especially nice option if you're traveling mid-summer and are worried about excessive heat. You can get from Verona to Munich by train in just over 5 hours. The Dolomites would require a similar amount of time. I often see good airfares into Milan from my origin, and even Venice might be possible.

Thanks for this feedback. I will think about all these ideas! Our travel is for this June. We were in Venice last year and will be again next year, so we'd probably avoid that area. However, we haven't visited other areas in northern Italy. Thanks for these ideas!

Do you think we could comfortably visit Slovenia without a rental car? We were thinking of Ljubljana, but have just begun our research.

You can see a lot of Slovenia by bus if you check the schedules ahead of time and plot your path carefully: Lake Bled, Lake Bohinj, the Vintgar Gorge, Piran (on the Istrian Coast), Postojna Caves, and Skocjan Caves. I'm not sure how much you can do about getting into the Julian Alps without a car, and that's a place I'd certainly want to go if I had two weeks, but there might well be some sort of 2-day trip running from Ljubljana. If you want a comprehensive answer, repost in the Slovenia forum with a title like "Two Weeks in Slovenia without a Car?", and I'm sure Dejan can help.

Another thing to know is that if you can get pretty close to a Slovenian destination by bus, the last leg by taxi may prove rather affordable for the two of you. At least that was the case in 2015. I found the tourist office in Ljubljana very helpful to folks depending on public transportation, and English is widely spoken by the young people in Slovenia, so assistance is always at hand.

Although getting from Slovenia to Croatia is not as easy as one might think from looking at a map, there are both rail and bus links between the two capital cities, and I took a bus from Ljubljana to Rovinj (Croatian Istria) in 2015. From Rovinj one can move up and down the Istrian coast to places like Pula (Roman ruins) and Porec. (This might also be possible from Piran.) Inland Istria is quite difficult without a car, though I eventually turned up a one-day bus tour that departed from the major Croatian coastal towns once a week.

From Zagreb there is good bus service to Croatia's magnificient Plitvice Lakes National Park, but you really need to spend the night there so you are in the park outside of the typical daytrippers' hours, when it is totally slammed and not nearly as enjoyable.

I should mention that I loved Montenegro and think you could easily fill two weeks there, between the historic towns and the beautiful countryside, but bus service is a bit thinner than it is farther north, and seeing the best of the countryside isn't easy without a car. Also, I'm not sure how frequent flights are to and from Podgorica. I arrived via bus from Bulgaria by way of Serbia and left via bus to Croatia, which is probably a bit more adventure than you are looking for. You can check Skyscanner.com to see how complex Podgorica-Munich would be. I use Google Flights to research transatlantic trips.

"...cities destinations with interesting cultural sites." I would suggest Leipzig and Dresden. From numerous places can be reached as day trips, such as Naumburg an der Saale, Weimar, Görlitz, Meißen, Halle, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Erfurt, etc. These are cities/towns connected in Germany's cultural history, if you're into classical music, literature, the towns of Händel, Schumann, Carl Maria von Weber, Liszt, Mendelsohn, Bach, Wagner, as well as Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder, Hegel.

We really appreciate these ideas. We are in full brainstorming mode right now. We're considering one week within train ride radius of Munich, perhaps different locations in Germany or Switzerland. And, one week somewhere more distant, either longer train ride (Slovenia) or a flight (we have really been wanting to go to Athens). We will be traveling with our 4 yr old, who is a great little traveler, in case that affects suggestions.

If you have suggestions about where to spend a week in Germany/Switzerland, we'd be grateful for ideas. Thanks!

I am not a big fan of Athens other than its museums and classical sites, by which I mean I find it generally a not-very-attractive, crowded city. I would want more than a week in Greece so that I had time to include a nice island or two, Nafplion, etc. Getting to Greece is sort of a hassle, so I'd prefer to make that a trip all its own. However, my travel style is to wander around and look at pretty stuff, and I quickly get my fill of classical sites. If you are historical-site-driven travelers, I guess a week in Athens might be just the thing.