I was lucky - I did that trip back when there was a direct afternoon train! It was full too, so must have been popular.

If I were doing it now, I'd consider either the 11:20 bus from Piazzale Roma to Villach and then the train, although there's a two hour wait in Villach, or the 15:48 train to Villach which has a short connection time, but doesn't get you to Ljubljana until 21:08 - better than the middle of the night, though.

Try a bus from Ljubljana to Trieste and then a train to Venice.
The bus and train stations in Trieste are next to each other.

I think Gertie's suggestion should be the fastest (under the given circumstances):

dep Venice 16.11 (train)
arr Trieste 18.16
dep Trieste 19.20 (bus)
arr Ljubljana 21.00

Caveat: Got those infos only from the web. No personal experience w/ doing this connection.
Info on buses Trieste-LJ
http://www.autostazionetrieste.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=0

BUT: Google Trieste and take a look at the beautiful town. It could be an idea to go there earlier by train and spend the day or a few hours there. You will get a mix of Italian lifestyle with old Austrian/Habsburg architecture and cityscape.

On Friday Sept 25, Sat. Sept 26 and Wed. Sept 30, there is a 5 p.m. ferry (Venezia Lines from Venice to Porec, Croatia, that gets in at 7:30 p.m. You could spend the night in Porec, rent a car and drive the few hours to Ljubljana the next morning. Of course, I don't know what the rate for the car would be.

http://www.venezialines.com/eng/routes.asp?polazak=Venice-False&dolazak=Porec-True&mjesec=9&flag=Search

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone!

There seem to be lots of trains from Venice to Trieste, and there's an earlier bus too leaving Trieste at 14:00 that gets into Ljubljana only at 16:13, which isn't bad at all. I might even consider spending a night there, but I wouldn't have to, especially if the bus and train stations are adjacent. Perhaps I could get an early train from Venice, spend a few hours wandering around, and catch the bus on to Ljubljana. Options at least!

I don't have all of the details, but last October we took a train from Venice to Ljubljana. We left Venice around 2:00 in the afternoon, had a brief stop in Villach, changed trains, and arrive in Ljubljana around 9:00 pm. It was no problem! If I recall, we booked the tickets at the train station in Venice. Has the schedule changed so much in the past year? Whatever - Ljubljana was delightful - I highly recommend it!

An update...from Ljubljana! (Beautiful, charming town - wow!). I was going to do the Trieste train to bus route (and even considered a stop-over night there), but just yesterday in Venice I found out about a direct bus between Venice Mestre and Ljubljana by a Slovenian bus company called DRD:

http://www.drd.si

Only 25 Euros, not even a four hour trip, mostly highway. My only complaint was the bus driver, who kept to the speed limit (I was sitting at the front) but was sometimes distracted by a cute female passenger he was chatting with (she was sitting in a seat next to him - hard to describe), constantly fiddling with the radio to try to tune in the right station (even while exiting the freeway!), and by other drivers on the road (don't TAKE PICTURES OF OTHER CARS WITH YOUR CELL PHONE while driving a bus full of people, you moron!). I'm definitely going to let the company know about this guy. I was a bit worried I would become one of those tragic stories you hear about where a bus overturns or something - yikes!

Thanks, Andrew for the DRD link and information!

Yes, Andrew, thanks for the updated info.

Thanks for the update -- good to know about this bus -- and the driver!

Does anyone know if DRD runs it's direct bus between Venice Mestre and Ljubljana on Sundays? I'm trying to get from Ljubljana to Venice on Sunday, May 30th.

According to their website, it runs every day:

http://www.drd.si/time.htm

You can email them or just call and ask them to verify, via the info on that page.

Definitely email them. I'm taking the bus on Monday at 11:30 a.m., and arranged it via email. They were very responsive!

Kyliebaby3, I assume you're taking it from Mestre to Ljubljana then? Get to Mestre early enough to find the DRD van parked out across the street from Mestre station! I found it quite confusing to find their van at Mestre; don't expect anyone at the Mestre bus or train terminals to have any clue what a DRD bus is, because (at least last September) it doesn't depart from the Mestre station formally. I got quite stressed trying to find it, but at least I arrived quite early.

(Going the other way from Ljubljana to Mestre should be no problem; I think the DRD bus will be easy to find at the terminal there.)

Yes, I am...and thank you SO MUCH for the information! When I arrived into Santa Lucia today, I was trying to figure out how much time to allow to get back to Mestre, find the bus, et al. I'm glad to know I should allow a bit more time so I don't get left in the dust, although I guess there are worse places to be stranded than Venice

Thank you again-- I really appreciate it!

When I took the DRD bus, there was a colorfully-painted van painted with the DRD logo (hard to miss if you are LOOKING for a van) parked on the street in front of a Best Western type place (don't hold me to that hotel name). If you exit the Mestre station, with your back to the station, you cross the street and the van would have been in front of the hotel to your RIGHT. I thought this van would be our transportation back up to Ljubljana - and I guess sometimes it is - but in this case they had a full bus to drive back. So about eight of us piled into this DRD van, drove about three blocks to the actual bus, then took the bus on to Ljubljana (our bus was mostly empty). The procedure may vary for you, though.

Our bus was an express service. We stopped once for about a 20 minute break at some sort of rest stop/gas station maybe halfway through the trip.

Awesome-- thank you so much! This is so helpful, and hopefully I'll be able to locate the bus/van without incident tomorrow morning. Time to enjoy my last afternoon in Venice!

I thought there was a train from Venice to Budapest that goes through Ljubljana. Raileurope.com shows one leaving Venice at 9:20 PM

Sure there's that one train - if you don't mind getting into Ljubljana at 1:30am...

I can't thank you enough, Andrew, for the detailed acct of how to find the DRD van. I'm standing in front of it right now, and had you not given me such good directions, I'd probably be walking around in circles. Thank you!!

Just an fyi, it's not a Best Western, although there is one to the left of the station. The van is parked in front of Hotel Plaza in case anyone else is trying to find it.

Ah, I knew there was a Best Western there somewhere! Just not in front of the van, LOL! Glad you were able to find the DRD van so easily - hope you had a good ride to Ljubljana!

It was great! It only took 2.5 hours (we didn't stop), and it was easy as pie. Thank you again

Thanks Andrew!!!
I'm a Slovenian living in the US and found your info very useful!! Yay!

Hi.

I also found out that it's not easy to go from Venice to Ljubljana.
I think that the way of going to Triest (beautiful town I heard) is the best option and the cheapest one. This is because me, my boyfriend and my brother and a friend of him, we are going to do a Eurotrip.
So, there is a problem with Venice - Triest ...
On the site in Belgium, to travel in Europe, they say that there isn't a way to go from Venice and Triest. I tried on the site of Italy himself, and there they said that they don't have the timetables allready for the summer. When I tried Milano to Venice, there was no problem.
So ... is this just because it's another and maybe 'not so big' trainway, that they don't have yet the timetables? It's just because I want to go farther, to have a timetable of all our trains, but it's difficult when you can't find the hours from Venice to Triest...
From Triest to Ljubljana I have to find the bus too, but first I want to find the timetable from Venice to Triest.

Can anybody help me?

EmilieR, check Trenitalia's website to find information about trains from Venice to Trieste:

http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html

Checking right now, I see there are plenty of trains daily (checking tomorrow, for example) from Venice to Trieste.

However, if you read the whole thread here, you'll see that I found a direct bus from Mestre to Lujubljana that was convenient and only 25 Euro per person. Take a short train ride from Venice to Mestre and find the DRD bus to Ljubljana.

I know but we have a train card to go in a month true Europe, so, we don't want to make costs with a DRD bus if we can go with the train too. But then I'll just wait a little bit longer so the timetables are there. And I will check the site again.

Thank you.

Hi.

Do somebody know where we have to go for the bus from Trieste to Ljubljana?