Lubljana or Bled as a base to explore Julian Alps and Lake Bled in May

Ljubljana is a charming city. Lake Bled is beautiful but extremely small; you can walk all the way around it in 2 or 3 hours. Bled the town didn't seem very special to me, so I think it's a matter of weighing your interest in a city vs. your interest in scenery.

If you want to explore the Julian Alps, Bled is a perfect place to stay.
We spent a week in Bled in early October 2023. We stayed at Hotel Lovec. We booked two local tours that were spectacular.
The Vintgar Gorge is a half day hike that is self-guided and absolutely stunning. The van takes you to the starting point and picks you up at the top then drops you at the Castle for a self-guided tour. Then walk down the hill back to town. We also booked an all-day Soca Valley and Triglav National Park trip that included many short treks, morning coffee on top of the mountain, a stop for lunch, and visiting several alpine lakes. The hotel or the tourist office has brochures for tours.
You can rent electric bikes to bike around the lake or on the trails and take a boat to the island to see the church.
We took the bus into Ljubljana for a city tour and to visit the market.

The hotel arranged a taxi to the airport for our flight home from Ljubljana. ($60E)
Enjoy your trip.

Ljubljana is just terrific and I would spend those three nights there without hesitation. Bled was a fine as a day trip for me. Personally, I’d call it there and leave out the idea of another day trip for the Julian Alps. At the end of a two week trip, you might be ready to just chill out in Ljubljana, maybe the most charming, laid-back city in Europe.

LJU airport, as you may know, is about half-way between Ljubljana and Bled. I think it all comes down to what you want from your 3 days in Slovenia. If you want a city with a little exploration of the Julian Alps, stay in Ljubljana. If you primarily want to explore the Julian Alps, consider Bled... or Lake Bohinj if you want an even more natural setting or Radovlica if you want a cute small town in the area.

If you are renting the car in Croatia, have you checked the drop off fee in Slovenia? Usually it is quite steep. We dropped our Croatian rental car off in Zagreb and then transferred to Ljubljana. Although we found LJU underwhelming, with limited time you may be best to do a day trip to Lake Bled. If you do decide to forgo LJU and spend time in the Julian Alps, the drive across the Vrsic Pass into the Soca Valley is beautiful as is the Triglav National Park.

Thank you all for your input. That is all great information. On the one hand Ljubljana sounds nice and it would be good to spend the last 3 nights in a cool city; on the other hand, I would love to see the Julian Alps and driving in and out of the city a couple of times and finding a parking lot to put the car for three nights sounds hard. I will have to think more on this, but a good problem to have.

Is there any place that is easy to park and has good access to the highway and get into the City with public transportation? That might be an answer. Maybe we could stay in a hotel at such a location.

We stayed 2 nights at an agro tourist farm outside of bled, plenty of parking, we walked into town and around the lake, which I thought was lovely and we did take the boat to the island in the middle. The second day we went on to lubjiana (I think) I can look up the details if you want the name of where we stayed. They had hotel style rooms, Apts, and a vending machine that sold bottles of both milk and beer.

I would try and see Ljubljana on your way to Slovenia and then spend your 3 nights in Bled. Since you’ll have the car, I would take one of the days and explore the Lake Bohinj area.