Not too many beaches in Croatia anyway, the coast is very rocky. Dubrovnik, Split and Zadar are obvious stopping places.

of course go to plitvice park. a wonder of the world. you can take a bus-- but if you have a car, we loved staying at rastoke-- which i reported on years ago. right on a small river and like a park in itself. (none of the rooms at the park appealed to us-- though it is handy not to have to drive 25 minutes...)

have fun planning your trip. i remember our drive along the dalmation coast well--- traffic traffic traffic and pedestrians crossing at every town. beautiful-- but not as relaxing as we thought it would be. i think that particular drive is better on a bus.
-kawh

I'm so glad you are willing to be a "newbie" on this site again!

Knowing what month you are thinking of would be useful. I have learned that some roads in the mountains in Slovenia are closed during winter, but are beautiful and worth exploring at other times. Let us know your timing.

LisaG

We liked Piran on the Slovenian coast, it's quite small but pretty. Lots of nice cafes to sit and relax. Here is where we stayed - http://www.maxpiran.com/

In Croatia we really liked Rovinj and Dubrovnik, here are the websites for the apartments where we stayed.

http://www.portaantica.com/
http://www.dubrovnik-amoret.com/dubrovnik_apartments.html

Thinking about it, one of the things we really liked about Croatia and Slovenia (the tiny bit we saw) was there didn't seem to be the 'big things' to tick off a list, so we just meandered, explored, sat in cafes enjoying watching people etc. It made for a relaxing trip.

We also stayed in Opatija in Croatia, which is very different in looks and culture to Rovinj. Rovinj looks very Italian but Opatija felt like it was part of Austria, which it once was. One of the best things we did there was a longish walk along the Lungomare, a path we followed along the sea to Lovran, catching the bus back.

Kay

Add to these the Istrian peninsula inland from Opatija. Friends described it as Italy 25 years ago, and I agree.

Have been a bunch going in April you are right a VERY difficult nut to crack guidebooks very confusing xport is not easy and many different opinions.I like it pretty expensive though rocky and generally poor beaches.Also dodgy blocky communist era buildings in cities that tend to mar ancient beauty. www.balkanology.com most helpful
virtualtourist.com My most memorable spots...
Plitvice NP halfway between Zagreb and Zadar
Trogir Dubrovnik Hvar Istria ok sort of underwhelming
Bled Slovenia(prettty far away might drop if short on time)

seat61.com and bus make for not great xport options.

Though more expensive renault eurodrive or other rental option works best for us. We usually just meander around book hotels at discounts on the fly they are very expensive online.

wizzair.com is the econo for that area cheap flights in for me

Good luck!

One thing you have to know about these two countries is that none of the towns/cities are large and they don't have a lot of sightseeing so won't require lots of exploration time. You can devote a day each to Ljubljana, Split, Opatia, and Dubrovnik and see everything.

In Split I recommend a tour of Diocletian's Palace to help it come alive.

I would take public transportation down the long Croatian coast since it's not very scenic. The scenic parts of the coast are seen from the water. If you do drive keep your passport handy since you may have to show it as you pass through that tiny bit of Bosnia.

I haven't spent much time in Croatia although the Istrian peninsula and Slovenia are high on our trip list. We did enjoy some wonderful days on the Dalmatian coast in the fall of 2010.

I would disagree with the post saying that you can see "everything" in Dubrovnik in one day. You can, however, have an enjoyable one day trip to that city. Other near-by places that we really enjoyed were Cavtat, Ston/Mali Ston and Makarska. More details about this on my trip report, Days 3 to 6
http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/trip-report-bosnia-and-herzegovina-croatia-in-october-2010.cfm

As you travel along the coast you might also want to consider taking a trip to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

gteetings from Slovenia! April, May, September (not too hot)are best months to visit Slovenia. Coming by plane take rent-a-car or come by car; whole Slovenia is beautiful and peacefull - mountains on the northwest, wine resorts on notheast and southwest, beauties of nature on every step. Must see is Bled and Bohinj (peacefull lakes surrended by mountains, river Soca valley with Bovec, Tolmin, Kobarid - unique in Europe, Postojna Cave, old part Ljubljana, Kostanjevica na Krki, Piran, Celje, Maribor, Skofja loka, Kamnik. One week wouldn't be enough to see 1%. Public transportation is slow and expensive. I hope it helped a bid.

Find information on some of the towns you may be visiting on www.inyourpocket.com

I know the feeling. I love to plan trips, especially the second trip to someplace we've been and loved. I often try to go again a year or two later so the memory of what we loved is still fresh and the ideas of places we missed but wanted to see remain. The first trip to someplace is hard, however, especially when you can barely find things on the map and cannot recall off the top of your head whether someplace is north, south, east or west of another. I tend to read several guidebooks and lots of posts and sooner or later things start to stick and register and a plan emerges. Toughest one I ever planned was through the Dordogne from Bordeaux to Lyon. I could open a map and never see the name of a place that I knew anything about.

Croatia and Slovenia at least have some names you can latch onto. I really don't have anything new to add to what has already been said but I can add another "vote" to the following:

Lake Bled--so peaceful and beautiful
Ljubljana--great bridge and nice market
Zagreb--great market
Piran--you feel at home in the lovely little village with a great circular "square" We trust Rick on this one and he didn't steer us wrong.
Split--the palace is very interesting and there's a nice seaside area
Dubrovnik--a tiny jewelbox with gleeming streets of marble and a haunting feeling of recent tragedy--but beware the cruiseboat crowds who can invade obscuring all the beauty.

We were not as impressed with the southern part of the Istrain peninsula where we found some highrise tourist sprawl that turned us off a bit here and there.

I love Rick Steves, use his guide books all the time. We used it on our trip to Croatia and Slovenia, Lake Bled and Rovinj were our favorites, driving was easy and very interesting. Enjoy your trip.

I think Steves can offer useful information about places you know you want to visit but he "pares down" itineraries to the point of leaving important locations out.

My husband and I just watched one of his shows on Portugal. I like seeing the scenery and sites via his show. I remember his show on Slovenia helped to convince us we would like to visit that country. You can get the shows on hulu.

Maybe you can get the Cliffs Notes for the guidebook.

Great replies! Thanks so much. I'll print this out and tuck it in my C/S guidebook.

I would go in September, I think. Since I'm going to Spain this spring, I probably won't be able to go till September 2013, so I'll have lots of time to plan and dream.

Did most of you drive? I'm comfortable driving in most places in Europe, but I fear that sooner or later, the car rental companies will decide I'm too old to rent their cars.

We went to Croatia in later September. Dubrovnik was beautiful though still filled by cruise ship passengers in the middle of the day. We loved Korcula and the boat trip there. Korcula is a great place to just slow down. Diocletian's palace in Split was interesting; we took a tour. Plitvice is a must. And we enjoyed Istria, for which you definitely need a car to visit the hill towns. Loved Grosnijan in particular. Almost forgot Trogir; it's very nice too.

There's so much to see in Croatia, we love to go back. Most regretfully we had to omit Slovenia. Next time.

I went to Slovenia last September. In 2009 I went to Croatia with a stop in Ljubljana, which I loved enough to want to come back to Slovenia.

Favorite places:

- Ljubljana: adorable city, great architecture, wonderful for strolling, not a whole lot of cultural significance to see (museums, etc.).
- Skofja Loka (town) and the scenic detour drive from there up to Lake Bled, via the little towns of Drazgose, Jamnik, and Kropa. Gorgeous scenery! If you drive, I highly recommend this if you are heading to Lake Bled.
- Julian Alps/Vrsic Pass/Soca Valley drive: as described in the Rick Steves book. Fairly easy to drive if you are used to driving in Europe in a small car. Great variety of scenery. The narrow roads between Skofja Loka and Bled were almost more challenging but still doable.
- Stanjel: charming little town as a detour from Kobarid to Piran.
- Piran: gorgeous coastal town on the (tiny) Slovenian coast.
- Maribor: less-touristed capitol of "eastern Slovenia." Not nearly as charming as Ljulbjana, more "earthy" but still a very interesting place, a nice contrast to the more celebrated places in the west of Slovenia. Easy day trip to Ptuj (oldest town in Slovenia) as well.

In Croatia, Plitvice Lakes National Park is also a must-see. Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina makes a nice detour stop driving
down to Dubrovnik.

I used Rick Steves as my primary guidebook, but Skofja Loka and Celje were missing from it.


I drove for a few days on each of my trips in Slovenia and Croatia. Very easy. The roads are well marked if you follow their "directional" signage - that is, the roads themselves aren't clearly marked, but if you're headed to Bled, know the towns in the path between you and Bled and follow the directional signs toward those towns. I never really got lost even without a GPS. I'm used to driving a 5-speed though; as you probably know if you need to drive an automatic it's much more expensive.

I also took public transit for much of my trips when I didn't have a car. Slovenia doesn't have an extensive train network (compared to, say, Italy) but it has a basic spine that gets you between major towns. Croatia has even less of a train network. But both countries have good bus service.

What a great trip you have planned. Lake Bled is an all-time favorite of ours (be sure to try the cream cake!) and walking the walls around Dubrovnik is incredible. We also did a day trip from Dubrovnik that included Kotor and Montenegro which was very interesting.

We used the ferries as our primary transportation: http://www.jadrolinija.hr/ This is a great way to get around Croatia -- wonderful for scenery and fabulous island hopping to places like Korcula and Hvar.

Another favorite was the sweet little town of Trogir -- you can do a day trip to Split from here. Villa Sv. Petar in Trogir was one of our best hotels.

Happy planning!

There is much good info on this thread but here is my personal fave from the Croatia/Slovenia trip. I really enjoyed seeing Lake Bled in Slovenia. The walk around the lake is gorgeous from every angle and of course you can visit the castle on the hill. Nearby Ljubljana is a beautiful city too.

I went on a cruise of the Dalmatian Coast last September. It was the beginning of the month and extremely hot (I'm from Austin, Texas, so I don't say "hot" lightly). Although it was hot, it was clear (only 1 day with rain).

I loved Croatia. It reminded me of a blend of Italy and the Czech Republic. My favorites were Dubrovnik, Korcula, Rovinj and Split. I also visited Pula, Sibenik, Krka Falls, Hvar, Stari Grad and Kotor, Montenegro.

Dubrovnik is packed with so many things too see (as well as tourists) in a small area. I really enjoyed walking around the entire length of the city walls. I did this fairly early in the morning, but there is virtually no shade, and it is very hot. Take an umbrella and some water. At least there are several places you can stop and buy something cold to drink along the way. Despite the heat and the climbs, the spectacular views over the city and the harbor were worth it. I also enjoyed the relative tranquility of the cloisters of both the Dominican and Franciscan Monasteries.

In Split, Diocletian's Palace is the highlight. I went in to the basements below alone, and it was very eerie. The incorporation/annexation of the ancient temples and architecture into the more modern structures (e.g. the cathedral and baptistry) are very interesting.

Perhaps my favorite town was Korcula. It is small and walled and quite charming. Roaming around the narrow streets was lovely.

Rovinj was similar in some ways. It too was small, and the old town has steep streets that wind up around the hill to the church at the very top.

Are you going alone? If so, don't drive. There are public transportation options that work well. I took a bus from Trieste to Rovinj, did some sightseeing on Istria by bus, then took a bus to Reijka where I took an overnight ferry to Dubrovnik. Then I flew from Dubrovnik to Zagreb and took a train to Lake Bled.

Another great option for solo travelers when in Dubrovnik for seeing things in the area are the Atlas day trips.

Good luck with your planning! When I went in 2003 the best book seemed to be Lonely Planet. I think the others have caught up since then.

Grasshopper, I visited Slovenia solo last year and rented a car for four days to drive from Ljubljana to Lake Bled, through the Julian Alps, and back down to Piran. I saw far more than I could ever have hoped to see via public transit. I take public transit whenever I can in Europe, but there are parts of the Balkans that really require a vehicle to get the most out of them. I recommend driving in certain segments and taking public in other segments, when it is more practical (train from Ljubljana to Zagreb for example is easy).

Plus, driving was very easy in both Slovenia and Croatia (I am always nervous about driving in Europe but calm down about 30 seconds after I drive the rental car away). It wasn't even that expensive to rent a car on either of my trips there. Fuel may be expensive in Europe for Americans, but the little VW Golf I had also got about 40 mpg.

It depends a lot on how much time you will have, but to me the only "must see" (and I rarely have those) is Plitvice national park. In September, the coast should be perfect, and so my only suggestion would be to pick one place that is less visited--and for that selection I think you should choose the place that speaks to you from your research.

Andrew, you weren't a women over 70 traveling alone.

We spent 2 weeks in Croatia a few years ago (absolutely loved it) and will spend some time in Slovenia this year. Here’s what we did in Croatia (and I think I have a trip report here somewhere):
- Plitvice Lakes - don’t miss, and try have a full day there (we stayed 2 nights at one of the hotels in the park – nothing fancy, but convenient)
- Istria peninsula – great scenery and amazing food (the best we had in Croatia). We stayed 4 nights in Rovinj and took day trips around. Gorgeous sunsets from the town’s marina
- Hvar – beautiful and peaceful, I still remember the cicadas at night
- Dubrovnik – a true gem, definitely deserves more than one day; it gets a lot better at night, when day-trippers leave. Don’t miss Buza Bar, and if you have time, we really enjoyed a day trip to Cavtat

We rented a car in Zagreb and dropped it off in Dubrovnik, driving was easy (yes, we took the car on the ferry to Hvar, even though we did not use it on the island, but we wanted to explore more of the coast on the way to Dubrovnik, so we kept it)

We went in September, and the crowds and temperature were just right. Here are some pictures (not great, they are all scans, but you’ll get an idea): http://ioana-mark.smugmug.com/Travel/2006-Croatia/1921328_d4mK7p#!i=97200488&k=G8JHX

You'll have a great trip, happy planning

Grassshopper: Andrew, you weren't a women over 70 traveling alone.

...who says she's "comfortable driving in most places in Europe." Slovenia is a safe country - if she feels comfortable driving who are you to question her?

I went to that area a couple of years ago and would go again. I did the trip with a tour company that provided four or more nights in each city except Split, but would go again on my own (I am in my late 60's and also worrying about car rentals turning me down one of these days). I did not do all of the tour options and went off on my own several days.

Lake Bled was lovely. However, I was not impressed with the "cream cake" that is supposed to be so famous. To me it was a cross between an eclair and a napoleon with only so-so cream in the middle, but that was just my opinion.

Loved Skofya Loka and Lubjlijana, done as day trips from Bled and would have liked more time and less rain there. Visited the market with all sorts of things for sale--crafts and food. Also out to Triglav National Park.

Rovinj was delightful as was nearby Pula with its amphitheater with one of the best guides I have ever had. She didn't over talk (and I find most do!) and was creative about inviting questions. I was fascinated by detail about who sat where and why, how they kept order at the beginning and end of events, how they kept the place cool.

Dubrovnik had walls to walk around which gave a great overview of the city. The city itself was interesting and was especially pleasant at night when the cruise people went back to their boats.

If you want to look at my pictures from the trip, they are at http://www.picasa.web.google.com/omstma Any questions at omstma at gmail dot com. (omstma=old maid school teacher from massachusetts)

Isn't it fun to plan trips and make dreams!?

Sorry, put an extra dot in. Website for pics is

http://www.picasaweb.google.com/omstma