cars, ferries and confusing itinerary

sha: Don't know how much help I can give you, but a word of caution about the ferries - the schedules are tough to understand and often, the best laid plans go awry. What I think is that it's easy to do Korcula as a day trip from DBV. You can drive to Ston in about 45 minutes, drive up the Peljesac peninsula to Orebic. That's another hour, beautiful but boring. The ferry over to Korcula runs frequently and reliably. I would suggest cutting a day off of your stay in Split (one day is enough, IMHO), don't miss Plitvice under any circumstances ...but then take your "extra" day and stay in the Karst area, like at the Tourist Farm Hudicevec which is centrally located, clean and reasonable. (http://www.hudicevec.com/ang/index.htm) In one day you can visit Lipica and one of the great caves - either Postonja or Skocjan. It's definitely a different culture in Slovenia, food, language....and joviality...and you're only a few minutes from Trieste, on the way to Venice. I think it's a change you'll be happy you made.

Oh....and I forgot to add that the car ferry from Split to Hvar only runs twice a week, I think, and takes a couple of hours, so that could alter your plans. You could probably take a passenger ferry over for a day trip and the bus on Hvar. If you're lucky and the ferry schedule fits yours, you'll have more options. BTW, the ferry from Orebic to Korcula costs 80HRK, about $17.40 for car & driver.

Last October I drove north from Dubrovnik to Split, via the Peljesac Peninsula. I left my car in Orebic and took the ferry over to Korcula town for several hours. I then drove across the peninsula to Trpanj and got a car ferry across to Ploce - this saved a lot of backtracking, and you don't miss a lot of stunning coastline between Dubrovnik and Ploce - and you also avoid Neum and the BiH border crossings. Incidentally I spent the night in Brela, a little further north from Makarska.

http://www.korculainfo.com/ferries/ploce-trpanj.htm

But leaving your car in Split for 2 nights might be tricky with finding somewhere to park, and you are paying for 2 days non-use. Can you return it in Split and rehire after those 2 days? Otherwise I think your idea of getting the ferry from Korcula directly to Hvar and then Split is very good.


ALso, can I suggest you repost with Croatia or Hvar in the title? It was just by chance I clicked on this thread as it could have been about cars and ferries anywhere. You should get more replies then.

The ferries between Split and Hvar island run three or four times daily even in winter. On Hvar island, they use the ferry terminal at Stari Grad, less than half an hour from Hvar town by bus or taxi. There are some ferries between Split and Hvar town, but cars cannot embark or disembark in Hvar town. Jadrolinija's coastal ships between Dubrovnik and Split call at Korcula and Stari Grad, and take cars.
Most ferries in Croatia are run by Jadrolinija (www.jadrolinija.hr) but there are other operators on some routes. This website gives details of all connections to Korcula;
www.korcula.net/grad/pitanja/index.html

I don't see the point of leaving the car in Split. It would be best to have the car on Hvar, as you won't need it anywhere else except on an island with lots of nature to explore and little public transportation.
I would choose Korcula over Makarska for breaking up the trip, but I've been to Korcula twice and Makarska never.
There are many options, play around with the map on the jadrolinija website to learn the ferry ports.

sha - Have you thought about going from Dubrovnik to Korcula (via Orebic ferry w/ car) for a night or two and then ferry to Hvar for a night or two? From Hvar, you could ferry to Split and spend 1 night or just a few hours (which was enough for us) and then head up to Plitvice. Of course, as everyone has said, you would have to check the ferry schedules.

The drive from Dubrovnik to Orebic was easy, and the ferry ride was 15 mins. We spent two nights and then took the ferry from Vela Luka (on Korcula) to Split (3 hours) where we spent a few hours before driving to Plitvice (3 1/2 hours).