Slovenia-Croatia in 2 weeks

agree with stay in bled and commute to LJU. If you fly in LJU feel free to stay overnight but half day to 1 day is plenty. slovenia has a pertty big cave not sure if you know, but it's pretty close to LJU, and a nearby castle can be done in 1 day. also consider piran on the coast - there are couple of towns on the piran bus line (maybe 30min to 1hr) you should check out. If you have the energy stop by koper but otherwise skip it.

Just to clarify - I'm sure it's possible to do this trip on the same pace as a Rick tour. My question is more about whether it would be a comfortable pace when doing it on your own. If things work out as I hope, our inbound flight should arrive in Lubljana around noon, so we would have part of a day there (admittedly, a worn-out, jet-lagged day, but we would try hard to stay up until after dinner). Sounds like that might be all the time we need to spend there - get up the next morning, pick up a car, and then off. We're not big on laying on a beach and soaking up sun. But we do plan to see the scenery as we work our way south towards Dubrovnik.

I stayed in Ljubljana and day tripped to Lake Bled, and thought doing it that way was fine. I really liked Ljubljana and will probably go back at some point. While Lake Bled is very pretty, I don't feel a great need to revisit it. Unless you plan to spend some time hiking in the area, one day is plenty, in fact could be overkill.

We did Vienna-Budapest-Plitvice Lakes-Split-Ljubljana-Salzburg-Vienna in 19 days in June. We really enjoyed Croatia, but did not get to Lake Bled. If I had one thing to do over, I would spend more time in Ljubljana - it is a very nice town, and I had many friendly encounters with locals there. I think that Slovenia is possibly the least understood country in Europe to Americans. It's great. But I hope you will do Plitvice Lakes - it was one of the best days of our trip. Croatia is VERY do-able with a car on your own. If you speak German or Russian, it is slightly helpful. If not, no problem - we had MANY friendly persons who loved speaking English, including our waiter in Split who watched American TV constantly and spoke clear colloquial English.

We chose to do "some" of Rick's suggested tour. We picked out what we were really interested in doing/seeing and didn't feel disappointed or like we missed out because we didn't do ALL. See how things go-your pacing may adjust once you are on the road. We stayed 3 nights in Lake Bled and enjoyed cycling around the lake and taking the local bus up to Vintnar Gorge and a daytrip to the Skojan Caves. We enjoyed Ljub. for a couple of nights (full day and a bit). We are not beachy people but did enjoy our time in Croatia--the scenery, the people, the gelato! Two weeks was a good amount of time for us to see/do a great many things (not everything) with pauses for leisure time.

Now booking our flights - looks like we'll have 15 full days, not counting our arrival or departure days (we should arrive in Ljubljana early afternoon, so we'll have a few hours to wander the first day before dinner and then collapsing into a jetlagged stupor). We will end up doing what Pauline suggests - doing some (probably most) of what's on Rick's suggested tour, with some other stuff mixed in. With 15 days, I'm increasingly confident the pace should be OK for us. I'm planning for the middle of May, hoping to strike the right balance between nice weather (sunny and warm enough but not so hot we'll wish we had aircon) and the early/shoulder season, before the tourism machine gets going in full gear. Is this (middle of May) a reasonable time for that balance? Anything special to watch out for during this time? Thanks again.

Try to check out this link: http://www.slovenia.info/en/Koledar-prireditev.htm?calendar=0&page=0&etype=1&elocation=-1&rday=1&rmonth=5&ryear=2012&tday=29&tmonth=5&tyear=2012&lng=2 You can find here almost all information, you can also see the events for each month and each region. I think April and May are good choice, the countryside has already tender colours, you can taste fresh growing fruits and if you are more adventure type you can try rafting, canoening, kayaking, parachuting... or simply enjoy in relaxing culture and traditional events..
Enjoy in Slovenia :)

Hi David, If you fly into Ljubljana you can use Zup prevozi who have transfers to Bled (or just pick up your car and drive to Bled, its not far) Recommended accommodation in Bled is Penzion Mayer or possibly the Dolinar for a tourist farm experience. Both Bled and Ljubljana can be done in a day, with an extra day if you want to really explore an extra museum in Ljubljana or say Vintgar Gorge in Bled. ATET are recommended for car hire and as for the weather, it may be warm for t-shirt and shorts, or really cold and rainy, we cant say in the mountains. Bled is not crowded in May, in fact, we were the only ones in several bars in May and we loved it! Great views and all to ourselves! :) (eat at Pri Planincu) have a great trip
Greg and Rona