We are planning an October trip to Venice ( not this year) and are thinking of including a few days 4 to 5 in Slovenia beforehand. We are mostly interested in Lake Bled and the Julian Alps. I have a couple of questions: Is the weather generally still nice into October, at least the first half? Language. We will of course learn a few polite phrases in Slovenian, but beyond that we will have to rely on Italian or German, or English. Which of these is most commonly spoken as a second language by Slovenians? Transport. Is there a decent public transportation system ( trains or bus), or should we plan on renting a car for the best access to places? We are not fans of driving in Italy, but I assume Slovenia would be easier? Thanks for your help. I am sure I will have more questions later;this is just the preliminary phase.
Posted by
Bellevue, WA, USA
811 posts
was in slovenia in april was nice a little chilly in the evening, maybe similar to seattle. no language problem, everyone speaks english. good bus system, driving is good too. train is ok but if involves transfer you stick with bus.
Posted by
Clayton, Missouri, USA
8 posts
We spent two weeks in Slovenia this past July and loved it. We had a car and would recommend one. We drove from Venice and it wasn't bad at all. Slovenia is very easy for English speakers, everyone we met spoke English well and it made life easy. We learned "please" and "thank you" in Slovenian (I'm sure we butchered the pronunciation) and didn't need anything else. We stayed at the Apartment Susnik (in Rick's book), great place, The owner, Mia, was delightful. One of her apartments has a balcony that has a view of Lake Bled - very nice.
Posted by
OP
Seattle, WA
16771 posts
Thanks everyone. That 16/31 rainy days in October does give me something to think about. We would be going mainly for the outdoor activities and maybe October is not so good. We are pretty much tied to that for Venice, so maybe we can just watch the weather reports when we get there and make it a last0minute thing.
Posted by
victoria, Canada
11507 posts
Off topic a bit,, but maybe if you want nice weather consider getting a flight to a Greek Island, the weather is still pretty decent there in early October . Look at low cost airlines for flights.
Slovenia sounds lovely, but thinking the area around Lake Bled could be cold,, if an average low is 31,, that means it can be colder then freezing ..
Posted by
San Diego, CA, USA
28 posts
After checking out the capital (one overnite-not quite enough time), we rented a car in Lyubljana to stay in Bled 2 nights with daytrip around Julian Alps' Triglav Nat'l Park in between (starting and ending this drive in Bled) and returning the car in Bled by 6pm closing. (We then took train to Croatia) Two points from this experience regarding rental and driving: 1) If taking insurance out for rental, ask what it DOESN'T cover even if they say it covers "everything". I usually stick with my Citibank card for ins. coverage but accidentally left that card behind at B&B so decided that for two days' rental the extra expense was okay. We had a flat tire incident coming out of the mountains (huge brick in the middle of a well paved road)...couldn't pull over immediately safely, so tire and some wheel damage to rental. With the tire change delay, we returned to Bled AFTER the rental place closed and had to take very early A.M. train so left it in pk lot of our B&B owners to be picked up. Received bill notice after returning home and it cost us almost $1,000 extra because the "all-inclusive" insurance "didn't cover tire damage". 2)As beautiful as Bled was to stay overnite, when doing that Julian Alps....MUCH more convenient idea to start and end in Ljubljana...it's an all-day adventure and was tiresome to pass by the city at the end of the day for the extra hour back to Bled. Still enjoyed Slovenia immensely and would go back to visit in a heartbeat....just being a little smarter..... Eileen and Joe
San Diego