Driving to Croatia this summer, with a stop over in Venice

[AOK]

After much deliberation as to how to spend two weeks this summer, we've decided to drive down to the Croatian coast. Other ideas on the table were Morocco, Sri Lanka for a week or Cuba.

Ultimately, we like road trips and haven't seen Croatia properly. Seems like it will make a nice trip. I'm selling my 325Ci soon due to a company car now being made available, so last chance to do a real Pan-European drive for the next few years.

In brief:
London -> Paris -> Munich -> Croatia -> Venice -> Geneva -> Paris -> London

Paris - family members live there, need say no more!
Munich - want to go see the 'BMW World' Museum
Geneva - stopping over for the night with a friend

So, 2 things basically:

Croatia - Any suggestions? Anyone recommend any decent 4 or 5 star hotels? Would love to stay at the Kempinski or the Monte Mullini but they seem out of our price range considering the overall size of the trip. Are there any less well known 4/5 star hotels?

Venice - What's the best way to do Venice? We'd be spending 2 nights there. Ideally, I'd like to stay outside of Venice and then take the boat in everyday as this seems the most sensible way to do it. The only thing is, where? From childhood memory of camping with the old man, we used to stay in Lido di Jesolo... but I seem to remember it just being beachside camp sites full with Germans in sandals and speedo's. What's the elegant way to go about this?

Any advice on Croatia or Venice in general would be wonderful. Feel free to recommend or warn of particular hotels!

Thank you!