Slovenia, Austria, Munich itinerary / questions

Consider flying round trip to Munich. Take the 1-hour train to Salzburg and stay overnight. Then rent your car from there and drive toward Bled, Slovenia. After your stay there, drive toward Innsbruck. That way your car will not be dropped off in a different country. The mountain drives will be slow, but scenic. We were in Slovenia last month and found it lovely. The Logarska Dolina valley was very quiet and beautiful. You can send me a private message if you want to see our blog with photos. Drop charges for dropping off your car rental in a different country can be hundreds $. Ljubiana airport is not a common one and is likely more expensive to fly in to.

I would definitely fly roundtrip and rent a car. I took a train from Munich to Ljubljana with a stop in Salzburg. Having a car to drive around Slovenia would be ideal especially giving the short time. You can stop at Lake Bled on your way in to Lju, see the city for a few days (3 at the most) then a day trip to the caves plus maybe to the coast? at Skojan caves, if you park your car at the train station, there is a pretty hike to the caves themself. Can't remeber how long the hike was, maybe like almost an hour? There's a little town there and neat little museums to learn about Slovenian way of life. And driving through the Alps would also be wonderful. Isn't it great to have family living there? With Ljubljana we stayed at Hostel Print. About 15-20 min walk through the park. You can also park your car there, plenty of street parking, as its in a suburb. They cook your breakfast to order.

Thanks for the suggestions. Here is what I am thinking for a first pass itinerary. Let me know what you guys think... Start mid/end of June, just depends on when I can use my airline miles. Depart US (Thursday) Arrive in Munich (arrive Friday) drive 4 hrs to Bled Stay overnight in Bled or Bohinj (arrive Friday pm, Saturday, Sunday, depart Monday) drive 3.5 hours to Hohe Tauern NP Stay overnight near Hohe Tauern NP (arrive Monday pm, Tuesday, Wednesday, depart Thursday) 2 hours Stay overnight in Tirol (arrive Thursday, Friday, depart Saturday) 2 hours Stay overnight in Munich (arrive Saturday) no driving
Fly out of Munich (Sunday)

Looks fine except that you will want to be very careful about driving a fairly long distance immediately after landing in Munich. Adrenaline will keep you feeling good for a while, but that wears off and then you could be in trouble unless one of you gets some meaningful sleep. Bled is not unattractive, but as a resort town it looks a lot like a similar resort town in the US would look, which is to say not especially charming. The rest of the lake surrounds are adorable, however. You can't take too many photos of the little church island. Don't bother with the castle - it's a bore. Bohinj is very, very sleepy by comparison. Remember to buy a vignette sticker for your car to drive on any motorways in Austria, and do the same for Slovenia. Get one at the first gas station you see across the border. We didn't get to see Ljubliana. With lots of time, I'm sure it would be worth a day or two. But since your time is short and you like the outdoors, I wouldn't do more than a day trip in from Bled or Bohinj. You'll have a fantastic time!

When are you traveling? It looks like you plan to be in Bled/Bohinj over a weekend. I was just there Sunday-Tuesday and it was a zoo. If you are traveling in the summer, try to avoid being there on a Sunday. It was so bad that we gave up parking in town near Bohinj after doing the waterfall hike and cable car to an alpine meadow in the west and went to Radovljia for an early dinner. Monday and Tuesday were much saner, but still pretty crowded. Bled and Bohinj are wonderful, but they attract a lot of people because they are so close to Ljubljana. We preferred our time a little further west, especially Kobarid.

We are thinking mid/late June so I am hoping that we'll miss the most crowded European holiday timeframe. We were in Banff over labor day and felt that as long as you started out early, you could miss the crowds and bus tour groups. I am hoping that this will be similar.

I agree it's not a great plan to fly to the other side of the world and then upon arrival immediately jump in a car and drive a long way. I'm lucky if I can manage walking after that kind of flight. Besides, if you want to go to Slovenia, fly to Slovenia. If you're using air miles, consider going open jaws. Costs the same number of miles as round-trip, and depending on what kind of miles you have, you may be surprised at how flexible your options really are if you do your homework (most people don't, and waste their miles). As an example, we did Slovenia & Croatia in May. Flew in to Ljubljana (Adria Airlines), flew home out of Dubrovnik (Croatia Airlines), both ways connecting in Frankfurt to a Lufthansa non-stop to/from Seattle. All three airlines are in Star Alliance, so we used United miles. Dirt cheap (I think we paid about $100 each total, in fees, for all the flights, and scored the tickets at the low "saver" level about 55,000 miles per person round trip, IIRC). It shouldn't be that hard to find public transportation from Ljubjana to Austria or Germany. I believe trains should work reasonably well.

David, The problem is that they want to spend the majority of their time in rural areas hiking off the beaten path. This is not conducive to public transport, especially in Slovenia. Having a car would serve them well, but must be picked up and dropped in the same country. While I am cautious about driving right after an overnight flight, it is only slightly farther from Munich to Bled than it is from Seattle to Portland.

Thanks for the good discussion. We originally looked at doing open jaw (yes, using UA miles, too) but the rental car won't work - and while I trained 3 weeks in Italy before, for what we're interested in, we need a rental car this trip. I think we'll depart a day earlier and stay the first night in Salzburg - that leaves us with less than a 2 hr drive, and we'd likely arrive in Salzburg by noon. Does that sound better?