Adriatic Discovery: Northern Italy, Slovenia and Croatia

The bus driver & tour guide were very good. The accommodation was mostly good. There were a couple of places that were lacking in local flavor and were also booked by college sports teams. The meals organized by Back Roads weren't great. The meal at Lake Bled appeared to have been brought in as it was not up to the standard of the food on the menu. Our tour operator organized some excellent meals & they were some of the highlights of the trip.

We travelled 4 times with BR before COVID. This recent trip was well under our expectations. 18 PAX in a smaller bus than usual. Too many KM. The destinations were mediocur compared to other trips. Some of the hotels were below standard. The open wine tasting was the highlight, it went down hill from there. On a positive note: Martina the tour guide was excellent. The driver (Sunushka-spelling?) was great too. They did an awesome job. Both friendly and helpful. Your team in Brisbane was not helpful at all with communication unclear and chaotic. If you would like me to send you the email transcript, let me know.

Summary - we probably wont be booking or recomending a BR tour again. Thank you.

Great itinerary and loved the inclusions

Our tour leader and driver were fabulous and got on well together, which is very important to the overall atmosphere. Some overnight stays were totally unnecessary.

Good value for money well spent.

Excellent choice of attractions, knowledgeable tour leader and run with military precision.

The trip was good value in terms of places visited and experiences both historical, cultural and natural. However there was very little "back roads experience". This concept is pushed by the company and yet most of the travel was on motorways. The 2 times the tour ventured to a "back road" experience. This type of experience needs preplanning by both the driver and guide. This clearly did not happen.

Overall much enjoyed but room for improvement

My rating is significantly impacted by the accomodation in Zadar on the penultimate night. The room was fine but the food (both dinner and breakfast) was seriously bad and was eaten in a huge cafeteria. It was particularly disappointing because it was the final group dinner and the the entire group was greatly disappointed. Our guide, Lana, wisely refrained from asking the group on the last morning how their dinner had been the previous evening. She knew she would not like the answer! I suggest looking for alternative accomodation in Zadar because I don’t think the hotel will change its approach to food.

Stefano our tour guide was a delight.
However the mini bus seats had high head rests which made viewing from the middle to back seats quite hard and you could only see out the side window or lean out into the aisle to see out the drivers window.