My husband and I are traveling in Slovenia/Croatia in May. We'd like to take a bus from Lake Bled to Zagreb, and then rent a car in Zagreb and drive to Lake Plitvice. Based on the distances between the places, this seems reasonable to do in one day (and it would be a pure travel day, not meant for sightseeing), but I'm not familiar with bus schedules. Would this be possible to do without inducing a lot of anxiety?
Posted by
Sioux Falls, SD, USA
3113 posts
Why not just rent a car for the entire trip? We rented last summer from Avis for 19 days. We got a VW golf, room for 5 (but not much room). That cost $620 or so. I'd just rent the car for the entire time. I'd say it's a 3-4 hr trip from Zagreb to PL. Probably 2 from LB to Z. PL is a wonder. You will really enjoy it. We probably should have spent more time in Zagreb - we had lunch in the market and walked around. There was an interesting museum of folk art that I did not know about that was on Rick's Croatia program. We stayed overnight near PL, and hit the park at opening time. The best approach is to ignore the crowds and walk to the upper lake top. There were 300-400 waiting for the bus, and we just walked up, even with my wife who is not a fast walker we did the whole park in 6-7 hours.
Posted by
OP
Austin, TX, USA
3 posts
Thanks for the advice. We'd rather not rent a car for such a long time because only one of us can drive a manual. Instead we'll just use the car for a couple of days and rely on public transportation for the majority of the trip.
Posted by
Sioux Falls, SD, USA
3113 posts
Yes, I understand your concern about the car. What we did was use the car for between-city transport. So, we would drive from PL to Split, park the car for 2 days and walk, car from Split to Ljuljana, park for 2 days and walk etc. Doing a lot of driving is crazy. However, the economics of 5 people and 2 people are very different. With 5, the car was much, much cheaper and far more convenient. With 2, not so much. Convenient yes, cheaper maybe.
Posted by
Ajdovscina
106 posts
Hi Jaci! We know how you feel. Driving in Europe is certainly an eye opener. Bus or Train is easy from Bled to Ljubljana then Zagreb See http://www.ap-ljubljana.si/eng/ for buses and http://www.slo-zeleznice.si/en/passengers/abroad/destinations/croatia/zagreb for trains (Trains from Bled leave from Bled-Lesce) See, no anxiety at all! :)
Greg and Ronalee
Posted by
columbus, nc
294 posts
My wife and I did basically the same thing in Nov.2011. But we took the train to Zagreb then rented a car. We rented from Active Rent a Car. The offered to pick us up at the train station and take us to their office. From their office it was very easy to get on the expressway to Plitvice. Only 2 hours by car and we were at the hotel at the park.
Posted by
OP
Austin, TX, USA
3 posts
Thanks! That's good to know. Did you buy train tickets ahead of time or the day of at the station? It looks like you can't buy them online.