Venice to Slovenia and then?
 

We're planning a nine-day October visit starting and ending in Venice. We'd begin with three days in Venice, then head into Slovenia and then perhaps Istria. We will have a car and are willing to go off the beaten path, but prefer drives of no more than three hours at a time. With that said, we'd appreciate suggestions of places to stop and what to see along the way. Been to Venice before, so that part's easy. The question is what's next. We're thinking in terms of two other bases and need ideas as to which they should be. The return to Venice is to simplify air arrangements and avoid a stiff dropoff charge for the car.

we loved lake bled and surroundings. we also quite liked ljubljana, which my hubbie calls 'the city that's a village.' it just has a nice feel to it. i think ljubljana is just under 3 hours... but there would be many beautiful places to stop along the way.

we recently were in two beautiful spots within a couple of hours of venice... the eastern dolomites (near belluno) and the friuli region (near udine). both were beautiful... the dolomites being spectacularly dramatic, and udine being a beautiful farm area.

For the remainder, we're leaning toward Croatia and other parts of Slovenia

A good guidebook or two should help you decide. I thought the Rough Guides very good for Slovenia and Croatia.

We were in that region last fall. It was our second visit to Ljubljana--a city that we love. You could easily spend 4 nights there with a day trip to Lake Bled.

Piran is a lovely small town that could be fun for a couple of nights.

If you are get to Istria in October, try to find a Truffle Festival--we went to one in Livade and enjoyed it alot.

If you like larger cities, Trieste is interesting for a couple of nights.

I like to use Rome2Rio to check out distances between cities. There are so many possibilities! If it were me with 9 days, I'd be inclined to just do Venice, Ljubljana, and Piran.

It's a perfect time to travel in that part of the world! You'll have a great time!

You need to buy a vignette, a toll sticker for the car's windshield, to drive on motorways in Slovenia. You can buy vignettes at the border or in nearby gas stations.

I would skip Piran if you're going to Istria. Plenty of nice seaside towns there.

As I review the options, I wonder what interesting options there would be if after visiting Slovenia we head down to visit some of the smaller towns in Italy within 90 minutes or so of Venice. What about Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Treviso, for example? Or perhaps other parts of the region? And how might these places compare to where we might visit in Northern Croatia. I know nothing about any of these, but thought they should also be considered.

Although I haven't been to those towns in NE Italy yet, I think you will find that they are generally better preserved than most towns in Istria. Istria was Italian until WWII, and when the new border was established, many smaller communities in Istria were largely abandoned and the area impoverished -- at least, as I understand it. (Some cities, of course, retained their character through those times.) Many of Istria's hill towns have been rediscovered by artists and others over the past few decades, and so are now small artists' villages. Northern Croatia also includes the former Austro-Hungarian northeast, which is quite a different beast entirely.

I've never been to Slovenia but I absolutely love Verona. We spent five days there on our last trip, a week there on our trip before that. Also Sirmione is a delightful town. You can read my trip report on those places at http://rovingrichards.com/travel/italy-2014/

We stayed in Cormons for 3 days and in Asolo for 3 days and would highly recommend either place for a short stay.

The scenery around Cormons is really beautiful (being near the Slovenia border), the people very friendly and the food fantastic.

If you click on my name you should find the trip report I posted. If not, I will be happy to post it again!

Padua, Vicenza, and Verona are small cities, Treviso a larger city. Visiting them by car would entail parking and getting yourselves into the historic center. The towns in Istria are much smaller, more village-like, (excepting Pula, which didn't appeal to me). Easier to park and walk. And they seem well-enough preserved to me. Everything in Croatia is on a smaller scale, less packaged tourism, more laid-back life style. Like Italy in the 1950's. Which I found immensely appealing.