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Post by mei on May 5, 2023 3:42:40 GMT -5
I'm planning a 10-day trip to northern Italy and Slovenia later this month. Any suggestions/thought? I'll mostly be training it, but it looks like there are few trains in Slovenia so that will mean buses? Any experience with how good (or not) public transport is in the country? (in some other Central European countries my experience was not great).
I'll be going at a slow pace, but would love to hear what your must visit places are.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on May 5, 2023 4:13:15 GMT -5
When I went to Slovenia in the 90s I did a tour as public transport wasn't great..
But I would hope it is better now!
I know a few here have been there a lot more recently, so should have better answers.
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Post by wombatrois on May 5, 2023 7:29:42 GMT -5
My friends went a couple of years ago and did a bike tour (e bikes). They did use public transport some of the time, so it can be done. Sorry, not much help. But have a fab time - the food is amazing in Slovenia too and you can just pop back and forth between the two countries easily.
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Post by sprite on May 5, 2023 12:28:56 GMT -5
Am I imagining that Rikita went there last year?
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Post by lillielangtry on May 8, 2023 11:53:51 GMT -5
I went to Slovenia in 2019 and used public transport!
Buses are cheap and easy. The main bus station in Ljubljana is right outside the train station. The only thing is, Ljubljana is really the main hub, so for example when I had been to Lake Bled and then wanted to go to Piran, I had to go back to Ljubljana and change, I couldn't go from Bled to Piran direct. But, given that it's a very small country, that wasn't such a big problem.
Basically everyone spoke English in Slovenia EXCEPT some people around Piran, which is very close to Italy and has a lot of Italian visitors so they tend to focus on Italian instead. That included the bus driver in Piran, which was the only communication difficulty I had.
I really liked Slovenia, it's so varied for such a small country. I read strong recommendations that you needed a car before going there, and while I'm sure a car can be very useful, I saw plenty without one. I booked a day tour - in a minibus - to get to the Postojna Cave, other than that I took normal public buses.
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Post by mei on May 8, 2023 15:32:47 GMT -5
That sounds promising lillie! It reads as if buses are easier to use to get around then trains? Those seem very limited anyway....
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Post by lillielangtry on May 8, 2023 23:27:00 GMT -5
That sounds promising lillie! It reads as if buses are easier to use to get around then trains? Those seem very limited anyway.... I arrived by train - the night train from Munich, run by the Austrian train company. But other than that, no. If trains had been an easy option I would have taken them, as I generally prefer them to buses. But journeys aren't long in Slovenia anyway. |
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Post by lillielangtry on May 8, 2023 23:33:05 GMT -5
P.s. at least when I was there, there were good lockers in the train station so I went in there a couple of times to leave my bags for a few hours.
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Post by mei on May 9, 2023 4:16:31 GMT -5
That sounds promising lillie! It reads as if buses are easier to use to get around then trains? Those seem very limited anyway.... I arrived by train - the night train from Munich, run by the Austrian train company. But other than that, no. If trains had been an easy option I would have taken them, as I generally prefer them to buses. But journeys aren't long in Slovenia anyway. I was vaguely looking at using an Interrail pass for this but sounds as if that won't be of much use then. Good to know. How long did you spend in the country? I have about 10 days, at most, and want to include northern Italy and will be travelling slowly just because I can't manage super full days anymore. So it already feels like too little time! |
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Post by lillielangtry on May 9, 2023 5:35:44 GMT -5
I didn't have long - I think I only took a week off work, so that's potentially 9 days but I stopped over in Munich both directions as well.
Ljubljana is cute but very compact. Honestly you can see most of it in a day or two. There's a castle on top of the hill, which you should definitely visit, and then it's just checking out the little historic centre. If you happen to be passing through on a Friday, there's a street food market. I feel like it's not a city to spend days in museums or anything - the national museum and the natural history museum are in the same building, and while I went to them because it was raining, they are not super memorable.
I also went to Bled, which is very famous and lovely, and from there took a day trip to nearby Lake Bohinj (yes, by public bus again). And I went to Piran and nearby Portoroz. What I did not do is cross over from there to Trieste, but that is an obvious option. Plenty of people also do it the other way around and make Piran a day trip from Trieste.
Weather - was generally lovely but wow, there were a couple of dramatic downpours. A friend of mine has been to Slovenia many times and she says that is quite typical. When it happened in Bled, I paid to use the swimming pool and sauna area of a 4-star hotel!
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Post by mei on May 9, 2023 6:12:53 GMT -5
that sounds more or less as what I'm thinking of at the moment but entering from Italy, possibly via Trieste, to the Slovenian coast (Koper sounds lovely so might not have to go all the way to Piran). Then Ljubljana, then Bled.
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