Croatia and Slovenia - come give me a hand planning please!

[FizzyLaser]

Are you an expert? This is the itinerary and we have to ( boring reasons to do with flights) add on an extra day

Where would you stay longer/go to etc

TIA

https://www.trailfinders.com/tours/europe/croatia/tour-highlights-of-northern-croatia-and-slovenia

It would be at Lake Bled for me, you could walk through Vingtar Gorge and/or head out to Lake Bohinj where there is a cable car up into the mountains, or take a half day zipling or rafting tour. You should visit also Rovinj from Porec. Pula was like a 4 hour visit for us, not sure exactly how long the itinerary intends you to spend there? It's a great region you will have a fab trip.

Thank you so much.

and Zagreb?

Definitely agree with pp, Lake Bled is beautiful, and loads to do nearby. Also in Croatia Plitvice Lakes are amazing and well worth a trip. Enjoy your visit

I think I would just book own trip though. It literally just include shire car and hotels. No actual guided itinerary

its £900 each (£1800), and doesn’t include flights?

Car hire for 1 week would be around €250-300 max.
The book your own hotels at each location.
The caves for example are a 3-4hr visit, and you can stay in the hotel at the caves which is lovely. So you could get there after lunch, and spend afternoon at caves and stay overnight

I'd add in a night a Rovinj.

But also I wouldn't book a tour for this. Fly in, hire a car yourselves, and as long as you get to Pula airport on the final day just book your own accom.

I also like Piran (on slovenia tiny coast area).

It’s not a tour. It’s just hotels and car hire. Usually much cheaper than booking direct.

thanks all for advice. I’ll go look

I'd check this if I were you, if you have a budget to keep to - I'd be amazed if 7nights hotel (4x room only and 3x b&b) and car hire for 6 days came to £1600!

You don't even get flights?

I've done Croatia twice (in that general region) and even as a family of 4 with flights, car hire and a villa we spent max 2000. And we went in school holidays.

I stayed near Pula and loved the area.
Hired a car from Pula Airport.

https://zagrebcard.com/
I got this for Zagreb. It's a qr code for trams and museum entry.

Yes we stayed in a b and b in slovenia in September on our drive further south, just bed and breakfast, but it was a small apartment so 2 adults, 1 child. Breakfast included, charged electric car for free. And it was €85. They had a restaurant downstairs which was basically Michelin standard.

I was looking at Vintgar gorge myself this morning so was going to recommend that - but the first pp beat me to it!

Placemarking to come back later!

https://esplanade.hr/

This place is worth staying at in Zagreb if your only staying 1-2 nights. It’s usually €150-180 a night, and it’s 5 star.

Personally, I wouldn't try and 'do' Croatia and Slovenia in one trip. There's so much going for each of them individually that you're dashing about without being able to properly see places/enjoy them. 7 nights is no time at all to cram all that in. We did 12 nights, 4 locations, and would happily have spent an extra night at any of them.

I'm not sure why you'd fly into Zagreb, only to then spend a day there and then drive to Ljubljana. I'd just fly straight to Ljubljana. And I wouldn't spend one of your days in Ljubljana visiting Lake Bled!

I would plan a trip to Slovenia alone, I'd stay in Ljublijana for a couple of nights and then head to both Bled and Bohinj (I'd stay in both - there's plenty to do out of both bases), then I'd either head to the north east (the area around Maribor looks interesting), or down to the coast via the caves (the caves at Škocjan are apparently much better than those at Postojna, which the locals told us are quite a tourist trap). The coast around Piran is amazing. From there you can either fly back from Ljublijana or from Trieste.

I would do Croatia as a separate itinerary (but can't suggest one as I haven't been!)

As to the cost... we almost booked as a tour like yours (self-guided, hotels/travel only), but when I looked into it in more detail it was WAY cheaper to book ourselves. We booked the same hotels as the tour company (Inntravel, in our case) and paid about 60% of the price their tour was coming in at).

Pula is only 2h from Ljubljana so it actually makes more sense to do northern Croatia and Slovenia together.

Croatia is a very odd shape with the majority of the resorts staggered down the coast, and it would be silly to try and "do" Croatia in one go. But northern Croatia mixed with a bit of Slovenia makes total sense.

Thanks everyone, I’ve since altered this a little bit- we need direct flights and that was a bit of an issue, also we have been burnt twice by flight companies and so on going into liquidation. Plus we’ve got a big family event before so I want someone else to take the stress out of doing it all!!

However, all your advice is very interesting.

There’s direct flights from London usually to Ljubljana, we have taken them often. BA do them, as well as some other cheaper carriers

Hi, we are heading to Slovenia next month. Have you any more information on this b&b please. Thanks for your help.

@Theirishwan
Like I said the b and b is old, but the evening food restaurant excellent. Ds could play In outside courtyard at dinner also. It’s excellent value for an overnight on route
https://ostarija-herbelier.si/?utm_source=mybusiness&utm_medium=mybusiness&utm_campaign=osterija

The Inteniary doesn’t make sense. Day 5 you travel to Porec, then 6-7 in Pula, then day 8 you travel from Porec to Pula??
Anyway, I would have less time in Pula, more time in Lake Bled and add in Rovinj (or swop Porec for Rovinj).

We are off to Slovenia this weekend coincidentally. We booked independently, 3 adults, flights £800 to Trieste (Ryanair) accommodation booked through Booking.com, £750 for 7 nights and car hire £190 for the week. So £1700 in total for 3 of us.
Slovenia is gorgeous, I would definitely spend more time near Bled snd Bohinj

We went to Slovenia and Croatia last year, although we drove, stopping in Bavaria on the way and Austria on the way back. I agree that the itinerary is nuts; it's all over the place!
We spent 3 days in Ljubljana, then a week in Zadar (with boat trips, a visit to Plitvice, and a day in Nin), then onto the island of Krk. A work colleague was in Pula at the same time and can recommend it.
As @SecondUsername4me said, if you're flying it would make far more sense to fly in and out of Ljubljana and visit the north of Croatia, skipping Zagreb.

Zagreb and Maribor and Graz are nice to visit and linked by train for someone who wanted a city break. There was so much to do in Maribor - I was shocked.

They're all countries I would like to go back to.

@Verite1 what would you recommend in Rovinj? We are thinking of staying near there in the summer. I like the idea of dolphin watching tours, snorkelling and maybe the nearby Aqua Park. Any recommendations?