8-10 days in Slovenia and Dolomites
 

I have a few days to spare after a conference in Graz. I wish to go to Slovenia and then continue towards Italy(Dolomites preferably, or any small,beautiful towns). Is it possible to do Lake Bled- Kranjska Gora- Soca valley- Dolomites by bus/train? I am not able to find any connections between the Soca valley and Italy, any pointers on that would be great.
And any suggestions for places in North Italy close to the Slovenian border would be great too..

Or should I come back to Ljubljana and go to Venice?

The places you want to see are really wonderful, however I recommend you do it with a rental car, public transportation is going to be quite a hassle.

If you simply have to stick to public transportation, then you should go from Graz to Ljubljana then from Ljubljana to Bled, then onwards to Villach and into the Austrian Alps or back down into Italy towards Venice and then up into the Dolomites. Kranjska Gora and the Soca Valley will simply take too much of your time to reach by public transportation alone. Alternatively you could rent a car in Ljubljana, go to Bled, Kranjska Gora and the Soca Valley, return to Ljubljana and then continue your journey to Italy by public transportation.

Thanks, looks like it's not going to be easy, I'm traveling alone so driving is a no-no..I do really want to go to Soca valley, maybe I'll leave it for another trip.

> I'm traveling alone so driving is a no-no

I travel solo and occasionally rent a car. Why do you think driving is a no-no for solo travelers?

Not for all solo travelers, that would be for me, I have never driven solo while traveling,I prefer to take buses or trains, not really used to it. I guess I should overcome this sometime, but atleast not now.

Where have you driven before? Driving in this part of the world is pretty straightforward, not a hassle at all, the biggest cities you'd be driving through have 300,000 people and locals are pretty used to tourists driving around sightseeing, depending on the time of year tourists might actually be most of the traffic you'd be encountering on some of these roads. If you've driven anywhere in Europe before, you have nothing to fear, if you've driven in the US or Canada, it's pretty easy getting used to driving over here, too.

Also, when do you plan on doing this trip? Places like the Alps can be very different in terms of what you experience at different times of the year.