Easy way to visit Venice & Croatia?

Years ago when I was there there was a ferry Venice to Rovinj. I assume it's still there. Train would be too complicated and long way. Driving would be also a long way.

Although I didn't start/end my trip in Venice, I used the Venezia Lines hyrdofoil for transit between Venice and Istria (Croatia). It's not inexpensive, but is fast and comfortable. The hydrofoil runs from sometime in April until late September/early October, but doesn't run every day. Rovinj to Venice departs about 7:00am and Venice to Rovinj departs about 5:00pm. It also stops in Porec, just north of Rovinj. It's wise to purchase advance tickets on the Venezia Lines website (www.venezialines.com), as tickets can sell out.

Thanks for the suggestion! We'll look into the boat[INVALID] how fast of a trip is it?

The crossing between Venice and Porec takes 2.5 hours. It's another hour for Rovinj, but that includes a half hour stop in Porec to drop off/pick up passengers.

We did this in 2006. The ferry had stopped running by September 17. So we took an overnight ferry from Split to Rijeka, then a bus to Trieste and a train to Venice. We could have done the Rijeka-Venice trip in one day, arriving in Venice around 7 pm, but we opted to spend the night in Trieste and it was actually a really enjoyable evening.

We drove from Venice to Plitvice Lakes National Park (Croatia) last month. It was an enjoyable 5 1/2 hour drive. We were driving a leased car, so I don't know what difficulties might be involved with a rental car.