grendel

Hi all,
I am planning a family trip to Venice and Croatia, via Slovenia, and I am hoping for some help from those of you who have experience from these areas.

What I have in mind is for us to fly in and out of Venice (with Ryanair from Paris), spend about 2 - 3 days in Venice (first visit, so all the must-sees), rent a car and drive to Plitvicka Jezera National Park in Croatia to hike the park and see the waterfalls, return to Venice in time for our return flight (or the day before, depending on flight schedule).

We will have 7 – 8 days, will travel in April 2012, we are a family of five (kids 14, 12 and 10).

My questions are:
1. What would you suggest as interesting stops between Venice and Plitvicka Jezera National Park?
2. Will one full day (2 nights) be enough to see the main sights of the Plitvicka Jezera National Park in Croatia?
3. Should we cut one day from Venice and maybe try to drive down to Dubrovnik as well, maybe taking a ferry back to Venice from there?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

qwovadis

Have done this your schedule is quite tight

Check on the Renault Eurodrive leases you would

save a lot... europcar.com tigercarrental.com good also

When I it perhaps 3 years ago your best easiest route

Trieste down the coast to Plivice/Zadar area many good

intermediate stops Split/Dubrovni/Split

ferry back to Ancona nightly in season will save a lot of $$

overnite and easy drive back up the coast via Ravenna/Rimini

to Venice... Had a great time... insuremytrip.com

viamichelin.com will have your route up through Slovenia

quite a bit further not as pretty to me ok though.

Make a couple of weeks if you can it will not be as crammed.

otel.com booking.com eurocheapo.com/venice good tips

Happy Travels!

parkimedes

Wow, I did a similar trip when I was backpacking around after college in 2004!

I see you have kids, so you'll probably be into different things than I was, but here's what I did and wanted to do:

Venice is very touristy. Crazy crowded, lots of expensive restaurants and touristy costume and souvenir shops hardly a single bar on the whole island. The boat rides are a great way to see it, and you can take a boat across to other islands, which have houses and roads and a more active civilization and a beach! Its a nice beach too, if you want a break from the site-seeing.

I took the train with transfers in Trieste, then to Lebjiana, Slovenia and spend 4 hours there. Gorgeous city. The castle on the hill is the classic fairy-tale castle complete with a dragon on its flag. The views of the rolling hills are beautiful, its a great landscape, reminded me of New England.

Train to Zagreb, where I walked around for a few hours..didn't really get to see anything, but the nice city spaces and park.

Train to Split, then boat to Hvar.

Hvar was AWESOME. Its a medieval village with cobblestone roads too narrow for cars, many have stairs curving up the hill around houses. Theres a yacht scene there with a big pier with restaurants and clubs and boats parked outside. Further from that you get to more humble establishments and beaches. Rent a bike and bike to the next town over for an off the beaten path experience. See the fortress on top of the hill.

Boat to Bol. This is a famous beach that shoots out into the straight, where there is enough wind that there are wind-surfing championships there. I rented a windsurfboard and tried that, it was awesome. THe sand is actually pebbles about the size of small marbles, which is nice, so you dont track any on your feet when you walk off of it.

People are super nice. When i was there the tourism infrastructure was weak, so at the docks, people have signs advertising rooms in their houses, which are actually houses for rent. Find one with enough beds, negotiate a good price and take it. Maybe they will make you breakfast, and be sure to negotiate a good price. A local guy set me up with his friend and his mt bike, loaned it to me, and took me on a trail in Split. They have great mt biking up a hill that has a big view over the city. The geology of Croatia reminded me more of Southern California, dry and not too many big trees.

I did not make it to Dubrovnik, though I heard it beautiful too, and I did not make it to the Pula Arena, a complete Roman colluseum in the north part of Croatia. That sounds amazing, look it up, and definitely check out some of the Dalmatian islands. By the way, the Dalmatian dog is from there, I saw one with brown spots.

Then I took the overnight, 9 hour boat from Split to Ancona Italy, where I continued on by train.

qwovadis

COST ticket here and travel by Blue Line ferries for only 20 € (air seat), with additional 35 € for the car. ... benefits on your trip from Split to Ancona, Blue Line has ...
www.blueline-ferries.com

Ferry I took it was very nice for price saved a lot of time

money over the long Slovenia slog back...

yorkshire

Two nights in Plitvice is good. I would just raise the idea that maybe that would be a lot of driving for a family of 5. Perhaps there is somewhere closer? I would def check the drive times.
Of course there are numerous attractions in Istria.
In the Kvarner region that you pass through after Istria, there are national/nature parks.
see more at http://croatia.hr/en-GB/Destinations...f-destinations

qwovadis

No clue about your budget but train is cheaper

usually...personally think Venice-tourism magical

no car water city I go a lot usually yearly

better than all the rest just stay out of tourist

centers in the day you will have a great time

www.hotelpausania.it #211 Canal Suite 59 euro otel.com

last for me.

Andrew

You could fly from Paris to Venice and then Split or Dubrovnik back to Paris via Croatia Airlines (to save money, look at using EuropeByAir.com to buy a pass; I used it once, definitely cheaper if you can get a direct flight to Paris.)

Skipping the ferry back to Venice does mean you'd have a nasty one-way rental car drop charge in Croatia, though. Instead, you could make your way by bus and/or train to Croatia and pick up your car there. For example, in 2009, I took a bus from Venice Ljubljana, Slovenia (beautiful city, worth a night!), trained to Zagreb, Croatia, rented a car there, drove from Plitvice to Dubrovnik (eventually) and then on from there.

Plitvice is a beautiful park but you could see it easily in 4-5 hours - I had one night there. Try to visit early in the morning if possible to avoid the crowds.

As for Venice: if you've never been, it's really worth seeing once. During the day it's mobbed like Disneyland but it's wonderful at night and in the morning.

Ackislander

Agree that Pitlivice does not require two days/nights.

The entire Istrian peninsula is beautiful, and Pula is well worth the visit. GGreat Roman arena.

Split is a big industrial city, but your kids need to see Diocletian's palace, especially the basement which holds it all up. It is 2000 years old, and people still live there!

And you have to go to Dubrovnik. The setting is gorgeous, the town is handsome and evocative, and the histor, from Venice to the late war, is interesting. Your kids should enjoy the circuit around the walls. Consider a boat excursion along the coast.

They will also like the food. Croatia has the Best Pizza in the World, and you will like the cheap prices!

LittleVicky

Is that 7/8 days in Slo/Cro or in total?

grendel

wow, thank you all for all these tips and info!

To start, we are on a budget (hence Ryanair), so flying in to Venice and out of Dubrovnik would probably be a lot more expensive, even if that would be a good solution for us to see as much as possible.

For budget reasons I figuered renting a car for 5 people would be less expensive than travelling by train. Will have to check on that. Is it possible to go to Pitlivice by train also?

It is too early to have the flight schedules for low cost companies, so I have no idea if we would be coming to/leaving Venice in the morning, afternoon or evening. I am not counting on these two days for sightseeing.

The 7/8 days is the total stay for now. Will see if I can stretch it to 10 days.

If I only have 8 days (which is 6 days + 2 days aller/retour), and I want to fit in Venice and Pitlivice, what do you suggest I add in between the two? Trieste? Pula? Ljubljana?

thanks again!

Andrew

I think RyanAir's round-trip fares are not more expensive than two one-way fares; in other words, doing an "open jaw" may not cost more than a round trip and in some cases could cost less. Unfortunately, they don't service Croatia. easyJet does, though - they have a flight from Zagreb to Paris. I think once you add in all of ryanAir's fees they aren't that much cheaper than easyJet.

You can't train to Plitvice, but you can take a bus. Croatia does not have an extensive train system but they have an excellent bus system (nicer than Greyhound for sure).

There is no direct train from Venice to Ljubljana anymore except in the middle of the night, but there's a direct bus from Mestre train/bus station to Ljubljana from a company called DRD.

With that short amount of time and with Venice and Plitvice as the top places to see, consider this:

Fly into Venice
Bus to Ljubljana (yes, very worth a visit, at least a night)
Train to Zagreb; rent a car and drive to Plitvice.
Maybe drive to Rovinj, enjoy Istria (Haven't been, supposed to be beautiful)
Drive back to Zagreb, return the car
Fly out of Zagreb - or, return to Split, fly out of there.

If you're going in the summer, easyJet also flies seasonally Dubrovnik to Paris.

easyJet also flies Ljubljana to Paris. You could fly into Venice, bus to Ljubljana, rent a car there, drive to Plitvice, drive back through Istria and maybe some more stuff in Slovenia and then return to Ljubljana, fly back from there. The idea is to avoid dropping the car in a different country than the one you rented it in - but for fun, price out cars both ways, see how it works out. Maybe the drop charge isn't as steep as I'm imagining just to rent in Venice and drop the car in Slovenia or Croatia.

grendel

thank you Andrew!

I will take your advice to compare the Ryanair roundtrip with two one-way with easyjet. With so little time it bothers me to have to do a circle trip, so if it works out with easyjet that would solve that problem!

We are going during spring vacation in april - probably too early for the dubrovnik - paris flight.

I like your suggestion to take the bus from Venice to Ljubljana, rent and drop car there, visit Plitvice and maybe some place in Istria, and fly back from Ljubljana to Paris.

Ideally though, we would drive from Venice via Trieste, Ljubljana, Pula, Plitvice, Split and Dubrovnik... not enough days for that though.

Thank you for taking your time to answer!

caroline_edinburgh

"Venice is very touristy. Crazy crowded, lots of expensive restaurants and touristy costume and souvenir shops hardly a single bar on the whole island. The boat rides are a great way to see it, and you can take a boat across to other islands, which have houses and roads and a more active civilization and a beach! Its a nice beach too, if you want a break from the site-seeing."

parkimedes, I think you must have visited a different Venice from the one I've spent quite a lot of time in. Only a few main tourist hotspots are "crazy crowded" and there are bars everywhere. There are no other islands with roads, you are evidently thinking of the Lido which is a peninsula off the mainland (which is why you can drive to it.

grendel, with Ryanair make sure you are booking to fly actually to Venice (Marco Polo airport) not Treviso. Personally I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. With only 6 full days I would stick to 2 destinations.

grendel

caroline, thanks for pointing out the different airports, I wasn't sure which one was the best.

Well, Ryanair is what it is - it does make some improvised travelling possible though (as do the other low-cost companies).

After discussions with the rest of the family, we are leaning towards the following organization:

Venice (3 nights) - Ljubljana (1 night) - Plitvice (1 night) - Trieste (1 night) - Venice (1 night) - flight home

or

Venice (3 nights) - Trieste (1 night) - Plitvice (1 night)- Pula/Rovinj (1 night)- Venice (1 night) - flight home

so, choice between Ljubljana, Slovenia and Pula/Rovinj, Croatia.

Any thoughts?