Need help finishing up our Eastern Europe itinerary for May!

Great destinations, but probably too rushed. Are you planning on train, car, or both? Lake Bled to Rovinj is a distance. I'd recommend renting a car when you arrive in Croatia and use that to get to Rovinj, Plitvice, and then drop it off when you get to Split. It will allow you to see the hill towns in Istria too. It's slightly rushed by my taste, but it sounds like that's how you like to travel. If you can rent a car around Lake Bled to do RS's two driving trips, I'd recommend that too. If I had to cut out one location on that list to allow more time for the others, it would probably be Rovinj. I've been to all of those places, except Budapest and they are all great!

Not sure if you are allowing travel days but the train from Llub. to Budapest took us 7 hours. We didn't see Prague nor Rovinj but loved the rest of the places on your itinerary.

So we're planning on trains obviously between Prague-Budapest-Ljublijana. After that it obviously gets a bit more tricky. We're interested in doing the RS recommend self-guided driving tour of Julian Alps so I'm looking into idea of renting car from Bled and keeping it through Plitvice, or as you say maybe Split. I'm torn because I really don't have any interest in driving on vacation while in Europe. That said it seems like it would be fun/needed around Rovinj (Pula/Motovun trips) and may simplify some connections. Also working with a travel agency to check on doing some private transfers. I appreciate you taking the time to give me your input Rebecca! Curious how long did you stay in Rovinj when you visited? Our thought process was it seemed like its different from our other destinations (more Italian feel, small town, etc) and we like variance. Maybe we just need to figure a way to add another night or two! :)

Great plans you have but as others have noted, it seems a bit rushed even though you don't mind a rapid pace. In April/May 2010, we spent 6 weeks traveling from Dubrovnik to Vienna. Spent the time in Croatia except for 3 days in Portoroz (Slovenian coast town), 4 days in Ljubljana (an absolutely beautiful city with lots of great architecture, and 6 days in Vienna. Giving yourself another day for Ljubljana - to wander and get lost in the city - would be a good idea. If you want to go to Rovinj and tour around the Istra Peninsula a car rental is a must - bus connections and routings are not great. As we were traveling south to north (opposite of your plans) we picked up a car in Split and then dropped it off in Opatija - with NO drop off fee. If you rent in Slovenia and drop off in Croatia, the drop off fee is about 200Euros. The train from Ljubljana stops in Opatija. We choose Opatija vs Rijeka for car drop off to avoid having to find the rental office in the larger city. Driving in mainland Croatia was easy and around the Istra Peninsula even easier - the roads are generally good and not overly busy. We stayed a week in Rovinj and used it as a base to visit all the coastal towns (including Pula) and the hill towns. We could have covered them all in 4 to 5 days but we treated the time in Rovinj as a bit of a vacation from our vacation travels. And it was a lovely spot to do this. Four nights in Dubrovnik is not a lot with the 2 side trips you want to take. There is much to see in this city and we highly recommend staying within the Old Town walls. It is totally car free and great fun to wander and get lost among all the old streets filled with interesting sights.
Happy travels, Bev

Maybe it is just me, but I spent three days in Prague and felt that I had pretty much seen everything I wanted to see. I have now been to Budapest for ten days (two trips), not including a Rick Steves Eastern Europe tour stop that duplicated a lof of what I already saw, and feel I still have more to see. There's a lot to see in Budapest. Be sure to get out of the tourist area where most of the hotels are! I also highly recommend the folks at www.budapesting.com who can put you up in an apartment. Have a great trip. I loved my Eastern Europe trip, which includes many of the stops you listed.

Well we've made some pretty dramatic changes to our itinerary as it was decided we wanted to push Prague and Budapest to it's own trip (to be done with Vienna & Krakow, etc) and instead stick in some N. Italy stops. We'd been to the big three of Italy back in 2007 (Venice, Florence, and Rome) and have always wanted to go back so no we are looking at something along these lines: 4 Dubrovnik (1 day excursions to Mostar and Bay of Kotor) 1 Split or Trogir (mostly just as a hub) 1 Plitvice Lakes 2 Lake Bled 2 Ljublijana 1 Verona (take Ljub bus to Trieste, then train to Verona) 3 Lake Como 3 Cinque Terre (day trip Portofino?)
1 Milan (fly home from here) We're usually pretty aggressive travels so 3 nights in Como/CT is out of our norm, but we're thinking we probably will enjoy a slower pace towards end. Things are still very much a work in progress as we continue to research. But I'm open to early feedback :)

2 days in Prague and 3 in Budapest of course!!