Croatia experts - I need your advice!
I have just been given a golden opportunity to spend a week in Italy/Croatia with my adult daughter and need some advice as time is short. We will be in Rimini Italy from 3/28-3/31/13 for a sports tournament. This is what we would like to do:
Mon. 4/1 - take a ferry from Ancona to Croatia (Zadar or Split)?
Tue. 4/2 - travel to and spend the day at Plitvice National Park (train vs. car rental)? We would like to overnight in a hotel near the park (suggestions?)
Wed. 4/3 - travel to Venice (train vs. bus)? We will overnight in Venice
Thur. 4/4 - spend the day in Venice and fly home to Boston that night.
The most pressing question - is this doable? My primary need is to determine the modes of transportation to accomplish our agenda as the distances between stops seem impressive to me.
thanks for any help you can provide, Gina
Gina
Contoocook, NH USA 1/18/13
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I can only tell you what I have done. Never been to Split; after a lot of research through books and through first-hand accounts, my consensus was it wasn't worth it. I stayed 3 nights in Zadar, which I absolutely loved (I drove there from Germany). Regarding Plitvice - it's a very easy 2 hour drive to Plitvice from Zadar on a very unbusy toll road. My family which included two toddlers at that time walked the whole park. Here is a cut/paste of my review of Plitvice from June 2011.
"Yes, it's awesome as everyone states. Bring kuna here. Most places in Croatia will gladly accept euro, but here they want you to "exchange" euro on the premises for kuna, with a generous cut to the park of course. We started from parking lot 1 and walked up. It took my family of wife and two children ages 4 and 3 one hour to walk to the boat, about 1/2 for the boat ride, and then about two hours to walk to ST4, the end of the park. I would suggest this as the route since most of the crowds walked down from the upper lake (it's not a difficult walk up at all - people were pushing strollers!). ST3 is no longer an option, as described in some guide books. From ST4 the tram train bus thingy will take you back to ST1, which is still about 20 minutes from parking lot 1. At first, I was a bit perturbed, but the hike is along the top of the lakes, and you get some bonus views that most don't see. Oh, the best part - we started around 1430, and the place was packed. By 1800, the place was nearly deserted - seems everybody is a day-tripper."
That night we stayed at Pool Apartments and I recommend it: http://www.booking.com/hotel/hr/apartments-plitvicer-seen.en.html
My wife and I stayed at the Hotel Jezero. It's like a Holiday Inn. Had a nice restaurant but the best thing is you can walk right into the park.
Seems like it will be a long day getting from Plitvice to Venice on 4/3.
Gina
I've only been to Split. My husband and I drove from Slovenia to Split last May. There isn't much to Split other than the old town, but it was a good stop-over on our way to Dubrovnik. My recommendation, if you want to stay near Plitvice, would be to rent a car. Driving in Croatia was not difficult at all, and it's beautiful! From what I remember when planning my trip was that taking a bus ate up a lot of time for the lakes, but if it is your only option - Take it! Plitvice is amazing, and no trip to Croatia is complete without seeing it! The other reason I recommend a car is that all the hotels (B&B's) near Plitvice are in their only little towns (which are really just streets), and they are not within walking distance to the park.
No matter what you decide I can't recommend Plitvicka Sedra enough! It's a little B&B outside the park. The staff spoke english, there was free wifi, and one of only I think 2 real restuarants in the area is attached to the hotel! The room was large. I can't remember if it had a/c, but as you are going in April I doubt you will need it. The food at the restaurant next door was really good, and because it can be very busy (being one of the two lol) they seat you family style. We had dinner with an Italian couple who gave us all kinds of insight into going back to Italy!
Here are the details for Plitvice Sedra. My husband found them on TripAdvisor.
Plitvice Sedra - Dreznik Grad
Irinovac 149, Rakovica, 47245 Croatia
?1-866-538-0187?
Hope that helps!
Happy travels
Ali Ladefoged
OK, interesting question. From Split (not worth the trip on your short time) to PL is 5-6 hours. Definitely get the car.
Must you fly from Venice?
I'd consider the following on your very short time. Fly from Ancona or somewhere in Italy to Zagreb. Spend an hour or two in Zagreb - great central market. Easy 2-3 hour drive to PL. Stay overnight. Do PL and follow the advice to walk to the top (we did that, and had no crowd problems). We did all of PL from 8 AM to 2 PM with my wife who is a slow walker. Truly a life experience. From PL, drive to Ljubljana, and spend the day there, maybe two. Fly back to Boston from Ljubljana. Ljubljana is much better than Venice, plus it has 1/10 th the tourists and is about 3 hours by car from PL.
Since you are in Europe for a very short time, spend as little time as possible traveling. My guesstimate on your itiniery above is 25% travel. Huge waste of time and opportunity.