I'll be visiting a friend in the Veneto region of Italy (Vicenza area) and we would like to visit Croatia's Dalmatian Coast, taking about 5 days. Is this even doable?

We know extremely little about Croatia and need to do a lot of reading on it, but I wondered what suggestions you FTers have for where to go given our time parameters and where we are coming from. Our primary purpose of this trip is to see the gorgeous beaches and scenery. We are interested in islands as well if time permits. We are definitely open to seeing historic places that are nearby, but for this trip, knowing our time constraints, if we have to choose one style of vacation over the other, it's more about the beautiful coast than it is about seeing every historic site.

I see that we can either drive east and south along the coast, or we could drive south toward Bologna and Ancona and then cross east over the water to Split. We do intend to drive by the car, by the way, unless it is strongly urged against. Is there a ferry that takes us (and the car) over the water or is it only a pedestrian ferry? If so, it might be worth it to take the ferry in one direction and drive back the other route.

By the way, we are going in October. Is that ridiculous? I don't expect we'll be laying out at the beaches soaking up the warm sun, but we are hoping that the weather will be nice enough that we can at least stroll along the coastal towns and enjoy nature without freezing.