7 days enough for Venice, Trieste and Slovenia?

[pinotnow]

DS1 only wants to be away for 1 week. The only flights I can see are a very late flight out to Venice so no time at all there on that day. However, flight home is also late so we would have that final day. We're quite central so I've looked at other airports and it's no better. Also looked at other destination airports and it's a lot more expensive.

So it would be 7 days essentially. I would like a couple of days in Venice, a day in Trieste and the rest in Slovenia. Obviously final day would also be Venice. Is this enough? For a similar cost I could add 3 days on (flights would be same times) but that obviously makes the holiday overall more expensive and ds1 may not agree to it. Should I reconsider or does current plan seem ok?

You won’t see much of Slovenia in 4 days!. You could easily a few weeks there. What are you hoping to see? Lubljana and Lake Bled are the tourist hot spots. Both very beautiful, but both very much on the backpacker/interrail trail, and so absolutely rammed with other tourists, to an extent that almost spoils them. I’d recommend Lake Bohinj over Bled, definitely. I’d happily spend 4 or 5 days hiking and swimming there. If you want mountains rather than lake, then Kransky Gora.

I'd just go to Slovenia for a week. Couple of days in Ljubljana, move yo Lake Bled then Lake Bohinj and the Alps. Perfect holiday.

Or a week in Venice, with day trips to the islands and to the beaches and waterparks of the Venice lido/ Lido di Jessolo.

Otherwise most of your holiday is wasted trying to get to places. All travel, no time to be or explore.

That’s a lot of bouncing around with very little time to enjoy anything. Why trieste?

Venice is crazy expensive so even if flights are more expensive you’d probably save money by just flying to Ljubljana and focussing on Slovenia.

We had 5 days in Slovenia, plus 2 nights in Zagreb. We used train between Zagreb and Ljubljana and train between Ljubljana and Bled but then hired a car once in Bled to get around. I could have spent longer in Slovenia honestly and we didn't see any of the coastal parts. I would work on asking DS1 to consider a 10 day trip. The trains were very full with backpackers, as someone else noted, I didn't notice being swamped by backpackers when out and about so much. Are you planning to drive from Trieste? I think if you stick to 3 days for Slovenia you could do Piran and Ljubljana but that's about it. I've no experience of Trieste but seems you'd need to at least transit through anyway to get to Slovenia from Venice.

I also would just to the week in Slovenia. Beautiful country and so much to explore

Ive been thinking about a simular trip. Those saying just do Slovenia, the issue is the flights are expensive to Ljubliana from Manchester and they're are non from Birmingham. Its fine if your London. Here's hoping Ryan Air expand their routes but with price of jet fuel now, can't see that anytime soon.

If you do both Slovenia and Venice I wouldn’t waste a day in Trieste- just what is needed for transport connections. However the train ride from Ljubljana to Trieste is a highlight in itself - it’s slow but gorgeous

Venice is not necessarily particularly expensive if you venture away from the main tourist areas. Even a cafe 15 minutes walk away from Piazza San Marco will be quite reasonable by British standards.

The last time we went we stayed at a- I guess you'd call it a chalet park- called Hu: Venezia, which is actually in Marghera, a respectable working class area with some very cheap pizzerias indeed (think 5 euros for a proper Margherita). It was about half an hour on the public bus to Venice proper.

Yes absolutely - if you don't stay 'in' Venice and bring a packed lunch for your exploring days and such you can keep it affordable. But if you are rushing through things and wanting to see lots in 1-day you probably aren't going to be staying outside town.

My daughter and I went a few years ago - stayed right on the edge of Venice but lunches for when we were exploring the city were crazy expensive. I live in a not-cheap city but it was still surprisingly pricey for everything. So just thought it would be worth pricing out both options (including transport between all these places) and seeing if it worked out better to just fly to one place and explore that area.

I did 4 days in Slovenia and it was rushed. I think you're trying to do too much in the time you have available.

I'd just do Italy if that's easiest I'd do Venice (+ islands) and Verona - both very different and Verona old town is so beautiful plus there's the arena, cross the river, it's beautiful.

No. You can easily spend 4 days in Venice. I'd do either one whole week in Italy or Slovenia, not both.

Just spend a week near Venice. Lido de jesolo is quite fun. Day trip to Verona.

Thanks for advice all. I'm quite happy with the principle of moving every two to three days and know we could spend a lot longer in all the places in theory. My understanding is it's about a 2.5 hour drive from Venice to Ljubjana so not long at all. No way would ds2 stand a full week in Venice but he wants to see it and I've been before. Think I will see if ds1 will go for a longer holiday and/or perhaps we'll skip Trieste - I thought it looked an interesting city but maybe not?

We did a similar trip over 14 nights.
2 nights (so 1 full day) in Venice - if you've been before, a day is enough for teens.
We took the train from there to lake bohinj for 5 nights with a day trip to bled.
2 nights / 1 day in Ljubljana.
4 nights in piran.
1 night in Trieste.
Flew home from Trieste - could you do that to save back tracking?
I reckon you could slim our trip to 10 nights.

Oh I've done those kinds of trips and Slovenia is good for them in the sense that it's small so journeys are short. But even so if you want to explore Ljubljana as well as visit Lake Bled or Bohinj and/or something else, it gets time pressured. You won't be there long enough to only move on every 2-3 days, you'd be moving every day.

I felt like I kept having to move on before I'd had a chance to do as much as I would have wanted in each place and you miss out on things if they're not open/achievable in the specific morning or afternoon on X day of the week that you are there.

What stops do you want to do in Slovenia?

In Slovenia we just want to do one lake and Ljubjana and perhaps a day at the coast but neither boy is mad keen on the sea so may skip that. I'm surprised by these replies to be honest. Google tells me Lake Bled is a 40 minute drive from Ljubjana for example so it doesn't seem to me we would lose a huge amount of time on travelling. I completely appreciate we won't have 'done' Slovenia, but that wasn't the plan. One year we did Amsterdam, Vienna and Zurich in two weeks and two days and that was fine - we could have stayed longer in each place but that didn't mean we felt rushed or disappointed. This is shorter but so are the distances.

We spent two weeks in Slovenia! Having said that it is not a large country and you could pick out some highlights for a few days.

We drove to Trieste for a day trip. Nice, but I preferred Piran actually if you want to see the coast.

Been to both Bohinj and Bled. Both lovely though Bled definitely busier. Still worth going IMO.

Ljubljana you can probably do most of in a day. I wouldn't bother with the castle there though, there are better ones. Predjama for instance is well worth a visit.

One highlight for us was bear watching

Yeah 7 days is doable but it’ll be a bit rushed! Venice needs at least 2 full days to not feel like you’re just rushing through the main spots, Trieste is nice for a day trip, and Slovenia’s got loads to see – if you stick to the coast like Piran or Ljubljana it’ll work, just don’t try to cram too much in.
Your current plan sounds okay for a quick whistle-stop tour, but if DS1 is dead set on only a week then just go with it – you’ll still have a great time, just don’t overschedule yourself! Adding 3 days would make it way more relaxed, but I get why he might not fancy the extra cost. No need to reconsider, just enjoy what you can fit in.

I'd probably skip Trieste and maybe just fly back from there rather than Venice if the airports work out.

Yes, of course you won't see all of Slovenia in four or five days - but it's well worth visiting. I'm not sure I buy into this notion that a full country must be visited in one visit, particularly when it's not hugely onerous to travel to.

A day in Ljubljana is probably enough - it's beautiful but small. Easy striking distance to Bled and Bohinj too - you could in theory explore these from Ljubljana, but I would probably stay a night or two there as it's so beautiful.

What sort of things do you and your son like doing?

Not to hijack ops thread but we are flying to Croatia (rovinj) 2nights in Ljubljana, 2 in Venice then 6 in Croatia. My husband wanted to go to trieste but we swapped for Slovenia as it’s a new country.

This. People also seem to have the notion that they have to 'complete' a country in one go and never go back.

If you like it, even a small country like Slovenia sounds like there's loads to see and do, such that you could visit multiple times and always find something new.

So perhaps have a week in Slovenia and visit Venice separately. Or go for 10 days. Or stick to the original plan but look out for places to visit when you go again rather than treating the trip as ticking off Slovenia.

Slovenia is stunning, we spent 7 days there it wasn't enough.

The drive from Ljubliana to Bled is in theory 40 minutes but in high season it can take far longer. Loads of people do day trips and the jams, especially through town and to find parking, can be really tedious. It's postcard pretty and a trip to the island is great but town is a bit touristy.

Lake Bohinj is, in comparison, glorious; highly recommend there for a few days over Bled, you can swim all around it and the cable car up into the mountains is at one end, you can hire bikes to get from one end to the other.

Ljubjliana itself is very pretty but only takes a day.

The Slovenian coast is not massive, we didn't bother as we were heading on to Croatia.

The caves at Postojna are amazing!

We've done a transit day in Venice and it was a bit pointless. Too much schlepping about to enjoy it.

We’re planning a similar trip this summer - we have 9 days total so thinking a couple of days in Ljubljana then 6-7 days in an Airbnb in bled/bohinj. Looks like there aren’t many restaurants in bohinj, does anyone know if that’s right? Also considering Vienna as the city instead of Ljubljana- another new country for my kids, flights are cheaper and there is parkrun!

Realised I was looking at the wrong place, bohinj does seem to have lots of restaurants!