Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Croatia via Venice for two weeks

AtlTravelr, we absolutely loved our B&B in Plitvice - Plitvice Maric Inn. The rooms were large, spotless, and well appointed and the food (both dinner and breakfast) was very fresh and delicious. Very conveniently located too. Also, the hosts were also extremely gracious and helpful. I highly recommend this place! In Rovinj, we rented an apartment which was well located and nice enough, not great. In Split we stayed at Luxury Suites Lucija and Luka. Very beautiful room and accommodating hosts, but we saw a lot of excellent choices in Split. And the only downside was the relatively small room and lots of smoke from nearby restaurants (actually that's an issue in Croatia in general, but it didn't detract from our enjoyment). I would stay in a larger place next time (more than two rooms).

In Istria, I think it makes sense to stay in one place and spend time touring around. I highly recommend Rovinj, which was our favorite of all the places we visited in Istria (actually, all of Croatia). Opatija was beautiful, but less quaint. Pula was a little too busy for our taste. We did not make it to Porec so I can't comment on that. Towns we visited included Buje, Motovun, Labin, Grozjan, and Momjan. They were all amazing and each had it's own charms. We visited Momjan specifically to dine at Stari Podrum, which you may have seen discussed elsewhere. It was truly magnificent and worth the trip! Be sure to make a reservation. We really loved Istria, and if we were to return I think we'd spend more time there and we'd definitely stay in Rovinj again. The towns are so beautiful, and the food and wines were amazing - especially as a vegetarian, I enjoyed the simple Italian influenced cuisine. I wish we could get some of the wines here in CA, I was very impressed! What was also amazing was that we'd walk out of a restaurant where we enjoyed appetizers, wine, entries, coffee, etc., and generally pay about $40-50 with tip. Oh and the truffles - yum!

We hesitated about Plitvice since it's out of the way, but it was well worth the drive - absolutely spectacular. I recommend getting there early if you can as it's much less crowded. There are other national parks you could visit around the Dalmatian Coast, such as Kkra (we didn't see this but the area was beautiful).

We loved Split, but having first been to Istria we found it a little crowded. Still the old town is very beautiful, and we had a great time there and driving to the surrounding areas, such as Trogir and Sibenik. The coastal area was breathtaking. We did not make it to Dubrovnik, and we really deliberated about this, but we did not want to spend too much time driving. Since you have more time, you could definitely spend one of your weeks in the Dalmatian Coast and maybe visit one of the islands. We decided against this since we have a lot of beach time here in San Diego, and in Mexico.

I wish we would have had a chance to see some of the other nearby towns (countries), such as Montenegro, and Lake Bled or Ljubljana. If we return, we'll spend our time in Istria and Slovenia, but since it was our first trip, I'm glad we also visited the Dalmatian Coast. Also note that we traveled in May and Slovenia was still quite chilly - as was Istria for part of our trip. We would have planned differently if we were there later in the summer. The Dalmatian Coast is quite nice in May, warmer than the Northern areas if that matters to you.

Overall Croatia is a fantastic destination - we truly loved our time there! I'm envious that you are heading out for a month. I hope you have a fabulous trip!