We're planning a trip to the 3 subject locations in September, approx. 2.5 weeks duration.
Any general recommendations would be greatly appreciated, especially regarding logistics both while we're there and getting there. From what I read, buses might be the way to go rather than trains. We're also having trouble finding the best way to get there, and which country to start in (probably Slovenia and then work our way down the coast). It's probably easiest to fly from a major European city into Croatia, but that is in the middle of the 3 countries we want to visit and probably not idea logistically.
We're planning on doing AirBnb's as per usual, there seems to be tons of amazing looking places for dirt cheap.
Should we rent a car in all 3 countries?
I was looking at flying into Venice (maybe spend a day there) and then taking a bus to Ljubljana (~3h), but I have no idea if that is optimal. Flights are pretty expensive to Venice ($1400ish) and most seem to have crappy connections in Eastern Canada making for a 15h+ trip. I think the only direct flights I can get would be to London/Frankfurt/Amsterdam and then fly from there, but it doesn't seem easy to fly from there to Slovenia (from secondary airports). Air Canada has an awesome direct flight from Calgary to London For $1000 on the 787 Dreamliner that I have taken before, but it seems difficult to fly from London to Slovenia. The inter-Europe budget carriers could work, but they usually fly out of secondary airports which is a pain, and we're planning on traveling with max carry on size and no checked bags, so that may also be an issue on the budget airlines.
TIA!