Itinerary Help - Italy, Slovenia, Croatia then Hungary or Austria?
 

Three of us (mid 60s) will be traveling late May/early June for 3 weeks and need help with itinerary options. We will be renting a car, and prefer the outdoors to museums. We’d rather walk around a locale, taking in scenery and architecture, sitting at local cafes than we would touring churches, etc. We’ve chosen countries, or areas of countries where we have never been (or only passed through).

OPTION 1 - add Hungary
Arrive Venice /get car
Treviso or Trieste for first night
Piran
Istria peninsula
Plitvicka Lakes
Zagreb
Budapest
Lubljana
Bled/Julian Alps
Dolomites/Aldo Adige (NE Italy from Trento to Slovenian border)
Treviso/ depart Venice
This option includes Budapest (which has been on our bucket list), but also involves a non-circular in-out route (4-5 hours driving in each direction). Or, Is there a way to see the other areas by car, and then drop off car and take a train from ? to/from Budapest at the end of our trip?

OPTION 2 – add Austria
Arrive Venice /get car
Treviso or Trieste for first night
Piran
Istria peninsula
Plitvicka Lakes
Ljubljana
Bled/Julian Alps
Southern Austria (Salzburg/Innsbruck and environs)
Dolomites/Aldo Adige (NE Italy from Trento to Slovenian border)
Treviso/ depart Venice
This option is more circular, yet involves driving through various mountain passes (we drove through a snowstorm in July years ago).

OPTION 3 - add Dalmatian Coast
Arrive Venice /get car
Treviso or Trieste for first night
Piran
Istria peninsula
Dalmatian coast
Plitvicka Lakes
Ljubljana
Bled/Julian Alps
Dolomites/Aldo Adige (NE Italy from Trento to Slovenian border)
Treviso/ depart Venice
This option also has an in/out long driving route to reach Split/Dubrovnik. We haven’t been able to figure out what to do about a return to Venice via ferry, or whether there’s an option for dropping off the car and then taking the train down the coast.

Your insight and suggestions will be very helpful.

Have you laid this out on a calendar to see how long you get to spend in each place? You need to repost indicating how many nights (two nights equals one day for sightseeing) in each place.

Have you been to Venice before?

If you want go to Budapest put it at the end or the beginning and fly or take the train. You don't need a car in town and it's a long drive.

You cannot take a train "down the coast", you can take a bus or a ferry. Do you already have plane tickets? If not, I would fly open jaw, and I probably wouldn't pick up the car in Venice in any case. But then I wouldn't have a car at all, except possibly for getting to/from Plitvice and maybe for the Dolomites (although I managed there without).

Do look at trains as an option. Niether Vienna nor Budapest need cars. Drop off of cars in other countries get a heafty fee, avoid.

thursdaysd - Yes, we have put in possible number of nights in various places - here's an example: (numbers are #nights)

OPTION 1 - add Hungary
Arrive Venice /get car
Treviso or Trieste for first night - 1
Piran - 1
Istria peninsula 2 -3
Plitvicka Lakes 2
Zagreb - 1
Budapest 3-4
Lubljana 1
Bled/Julian Alps 3
Dolomites/Aldo Adige (NE Italy from Trento to Slovenian border) 3-4
Treviso/ depart Venice 1

We have been to Venice, so are not planning to go there, only fly into that airport (using FF miles so airline destination is determining factor).
We still like the independence of a car, and DH and friend don't mind driving.

billoburgler - we will look at train at end of trip to/from Budapest after we drop off car.

I'm no expert, but I would be a bit concerned about plans that call for you to drive through Alpine passes in late May or early June.

Checking options to use trains for at least some of your legs makes a lot of sense to me!

Thank you all for making us take another look at our itinerary. After checking train travel and schedules, etc. we have decided to eliminate all three "farther out" options (Budapest, Salzburg, Dalmation Coast - saving them for separate trips in the future).

We're now looking at enlarging our area in Italy (still keeping Slovenia and Croatia - although we may eliminate Plitvicka Lakes) to include areas just west and south of Venice.

I'm sure we'll have other questions in another post!

If you're going to Croatia I would strongly urge you NOT to drop Plitvice. I spent a full day there and could happily have spent longer. The coast is beautiful, the towns are charming, but Plitvice is stunning.

Don't drop Plitvice. It's a highlight not just of Croatia but of Europe.

I agree -- do NOT skip the Plitvice Lakes!

Since we do enjoy walks and easy hikes, we will definitely keep the lakes in our itinerary. Thanks for the push! Do you suggest 2 or 3 nights in that area?

I'd say two nights at Plitvice Lakes is adequate, maybe even more than adequate, for all but the most exhaustive hikers who want to see everything.

Even one night might suffice depending on how early you arrive the first day and depart the second. I spent only one night and didn't feel deprived. When I visited in October 2009, I arrived first thing from Zagreb (rental car, about a two hour drive), spent the entire afternoon there and really saw as much of the park as I needed to...then the next morning spent a few more hours before driving off about noon. I stayed at one of the park-operated hotels which was a tad more expensive but also convenient, plus it let me avoid paying the entrance fee for a second day (if you stay at one of the park hotels, they will stamp yesterday's ticket so you can go back in the next day).

Understand that it's best to see the park early in the day if you can to avoid the big crowds of tour groups that invade the place. They can clog up the paths. I saw a lot of them even on that October afternoon, one reason I hung out the next morning, when there were almost no people in the park before 10am.

I agree that one night may be sufficient for the Plitvice Lakes; two would be enough. (A third would give you time to explore parts of the park that most people never visit -- parts AWAY from the lakes. I didn't see them, and so don't know whether to recommend that or not).

I strongly recommend trying to spend the main part of your time in the Plitvice Lakes in one day; taking a 6 or 7 (or even 8) hour circuit: For me, part of what makes these lakes so spectacular are the differences between the lakes, and to see that, you need to go further into the park than one can do easily on two separate visits.

Unlike Andrew, i waited until about 10 a.m. to start my time in the park, by which time most of the tour groups that were there that same day had already started out. YMMV.