Driving from Italy to Croatia

Your trip is too broken up for a lease and outside of France there are large pick-up and drop off fees. International drop off fees for rentals are also large, so you want to drop off a rental car in the same country. A car does you no good in Cinque Terre, Florence or Venice as well as Rome. Rent once to see Amalfi and then train until Venice. Rent again and do a circle back to Italy. Check that your rental is allowed to go to Slovenia and Croatia, most are now. Austria and Slovenia need a sticker for road use that you buy at the border, but I don't know if Croatia does. Have you watched Chevy Chase in European vacation lately?

Keep in mind it will be cheaper to rent a car in Ljubljana Slovenia than in Italy in my experience. But the advice above is good. Drop off fees are priced very high.

Two weeks isn't very long for all you have planned in Italy, particularly with big hitters such as Rome (5 full days minimum there?) plus Venice (4 full days there?) and with a child as young as six.

However, more rushed is your second fortnight - six different places mentioned, plus I assume that you will also be visiting Ljubljana? A one way car drop will be prohibitively expensive - I have seen people posting with hire quotes of €1,600!

I think that your itinerary needs to be reduced - get each of your party to come up with something that they want to see and plan around that. I would suggest dropping Austria or Croatia and adding a few nights to Italy.

The weather can be significantly worse in October than September, particularly the further north you are.

Mike is spot on . . . though after driving the Amalfi Coast in February when it's low season and hardly any cars on the road, I would advise against a car even for the AC. To give you a bit more info, a car large enough for 6 people (even some small ones) will be difficult to manage on some narrow roads - especially the AC coastal road - and even the very large cars have very little luggage space, it's hard to find parking and a large car makes that even harder, and you should not leave belongings visible in the car when it's parked. You won't need a car in Vienna and probably only in Salzburg if you are planning far day trips. In Italy and Austria trains are far more comfortable and faster (often traveling twice the auto speed limit and no traffic) than driving. So when comparing total costs, consider the time savings of using trains.

A couple years ago friends of mine flew into Venice to rent a car to drive through Croatia and back to Venice to return the car and fly out, so that's doable. They were two couples with minimal luggage, so they didn't need a very large car. I suggest you do more research on driving in Croatia before you commit to it.

I think you may be trying to do too much in Italy in 2 weeks. 2 full days in Rome means 3 nights - by the time you get through the airport, into Rome and check in to your hotel a good part of the day will be gone. Some of you may still be adjusting to the time change and jet lag on Day 2 as well. Day 3 is a full day in Rome, but Day 4 will be used mostly just to get to the Amalfi Coast. 4 nights gives you 3 days - one for Pompeii, two for the AC coast and/or Capri. That brings you to Day 8, most of which goes to getting to the Cinque Terre. Days 9-10 there, then Day 11 to Florence (1/2 day to move, 1/2 day to sightsee). You don't have enough time left in your two weeks for both Florence and Venice. When are you going to do laundry? Having your hotel do it gets very expensive very quickly for a large family. There are a few things you can do to maximize your time - you could arrange a private transfer from Rome to the AC, stopping at Pompeii on the way. Or you could base in Salerno rather than the more popular Sorrento and rather than staying in one of the AC towns. Salerno also has the advantage of a large sandy beach (most of the other beaches are either pebbly or small or both).

I agree that you are doing too much in your time frame. My husband and I spent two weeks in Italy and went to Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre and Rome and I would not want to have added anything else in that amount of time. And there were only two adults so we were able to move much faster than you will with 4 children. Your next few weeks are also rushed, Dubrovnik is pretty far south and will take some time to drive to and is a little bit of an outlier due to the distance. I would suggest adding a few days to a week to your time in Italy and use your remaining time in Slovenia and Austria. Maybe even just Austria. Remember that even though Europe seems small, it takes time to get where you want, unpacking, switching hotels, etc all take time. You will also need time for laundry and just general down time on that length of a trip.

Thank you all for your replies. We will work on our itinerary and look into train travel. Would you drop Cinque Terre or the Amalfi Coast if you had to drop one?