We didn't stay at the Metropole Grand itself but another of the hotels which is owned by the same group, it was called the Hotel Roza.

Hotel was very nice (3 star), great sea views, good but simple breakfast and what made a change was we were the only Brits there!!!!

Potoroz is concrete central in terms of beaches, do not go there if you want a great beach. However the Metropole does have a magnificent Olympic sized swimming pool available to all Metropole guests which is a great facility. We went early September and it was 28c most days, but the pool never seemed busy.

The reason for the lack of Brits is because all the UK tour operators have hotels the other end of Portoroz. The clientele at the Metropole end were mainly German...some won't mind about that, others will.

Portoroz itself was ok, it was stuck a little in the 80's which isn't surprising really. There are some great bars and restaurants but I can't compare to Croatia has have never been. Piran is about a 5 min drive away, or you can take a boat or even walk....lovely charming place...well worth a visit.

Airport distance depends on where you fly into. We got a better price flying into Ljublana and driving down to Portoroz, of course there is the option to fly into Trieste in Italy. Journey time fro Ljublana was about 2 hours if I remember.

We also went upto Lake Bled as well, very very nice and worth a visit if you are in Slovenia.

If you need any further info please let me know

Jwhiting. Thanks so much for all the info. Were going to go with Thomsons but discovered that the flight is in to Pula, Croatia and is 3 hours to the hotel. I really don't want to have such a long journey,so will have to think again about the trip. Great to see how people on h.t. are so quick to help with info. Much appreciated.

i have just booked up to go to slovenia for 6 nights arriving in trieste and renting a car, we are stayin in trieste 1 night, 3 nights in ljubljana,visiting the caves and bled too then onto izola which is near piran, so will definatley visit piran, do you know anything about the hotel san simon in izola we are staying there for 2 nights before driving to trieste airport from there so hope its not too far, but we have an afternoon flight so shouldnt be too bad