Leaving Slovenia and going to Italy

Several people on the forum (not I) have used GoOpti shuttles to travel between Slovenia and Italy. I haven't seen any complaints.

There's a train that departs Ljubljana at 9:10p arriving in Villach Hauptbahnhof, AT at 10:47p. You can take a direct train to Bologna departing at 12:55a and reserve a sleeper car on Eurail's website at least 30 days before departure. You would then arrive in Bologna at 5:17a. Its one sure way to get an early start that day.

A few years ago I was in Piran and needed to get to Italy. There are buses between Piran and Trieste but the times were not good - only very early and very late. So I took a taxi. My hotel arranged it and it took less than an hour and cost €50. I spent the rest of the day and overnight in Trieste as I wanted to see the city and then took the train on though Venice.

Taking a taxi is a good and convenient way of getting from the Slovenian coast to Trieste, from where you can take trains onwards to Venice and then Bologna. You could also take a GoOpti to Venice and then continue to Bologna by train. For a group of four, a GoOpti private transfer can be of good value.

We used GoOpti between Ljubljana and Trieste because the train times (only two a day, as I recall) were not convenient for us. As someone else said, once you're in Trieste there are multiple choices of trains to Venice and on to Bologna. MyDaytrip.com is another company that you could look at between Ljubljana and Trieste (more expensive, because it's a private service rather than shared vans).

I have used GoOpti and I was really pleased. Just make sure that if you want a private shuttle as opposed to a shared one, you select that option on their website. It's easy to overlook.