After eating and drinking our way through Istria, the Raff’s needed exercise and nature. A few days in two of Croatia’s National Parks was just the ticket. We headed inland and south to Plitvice Lakes.
Google Maps again suckered us into a “shortcut†which meant an extra hour of drive time on windy mountain roads! When we arrived at our apartment, our host, Ivica, laughed when we told him how we came. He asked us if we saw any bears as we were so far in the boonies!
Ivica was quite the character and really made our stay in his home special. He is a retired park ranger and loves this area. The river that flows from the lakes runs through his front yard, so he has landscaped a sampler Plitvice for his guests to enjoy. While we enjoyed our welcome beers, Ivica planned out our afternoon itinerary including hand drawing our map. He really wanted to make sure we made the most of our time and enjoyed the area. So off we went exploring.
Plitvice Lakes is 16 terraced lakes connected by waterfalls in a forested valley. The distance from the first lake to the last is 5 miles with a vertical drop of over 400’. In between are numerous small waterfalls with lots of vivid green plant life. The lakes themselves are primarily blue but change dramatically based on the sunlight.
We had a full day planned to explore the lakes with tips from Ivica to avoid the crowds and get the best viewpoints. We started at the Upper Lakes and decided to explore Raff style – we picked the longest walking loop that would see everything – 11.4 miles. Since the park is so crowded, the walking trails are only 1 way. There are plenty of shorter loops that incorporate buses and even electric boats, but we needed our exercise after all those truffles!
The lakes were gorgeous and ranged in size. We enjoyed the peaceful walks in between the bursts of tour groups. Overall, we were able to avoid the groups which really increased our level of enjoyment. We even found a quiet bench with a perfect view to enjoy our lunch – burek of course!
After our loop, we took out our handy map made by Ivica and drove to the top of the canyon for the overlook view. These were some of the best views of the day as we gained an appreciation for the size and grandeur of the area.
That evening, we enjoyed a long chat with Ivica about living in this area of Croatia. It was very interesting to learn about the challenges. Tourism is the area’s primary source of income, but it is a double-edged sword for the locals with high food prices and crowds. This area of Croatia saw heavy fighting during the homeland wars (1991 – 1995). It actually was the location of the first shot fired and first casualty (a park ranger) of the war. This was our first glimpse of the scars from the war.
The next day we said our goodbyes, crossed the rickety, single lane wooden bridge and headed south. Today, we had all major roads – yippee! Our destination was Paklencia National Park near Zadar right on the Adriatic Sea. The weather forecast wasn’t great, but I kept hoping that it would be clear once we got there. However, we were out of luck as it was downpouring with booming thunder. So, we found an amazing café overlooking the sea for coffee, lunch and catching up on our journals. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.
We lucked into an amazing apartment with a terrace overlooking the sea. The owner offered us wine for our welcome drink. Instead of bringing 2 glasses, she gave us a whole bottle. Her husband is a winemaker and she wanted to share. It was amazing! It was nice to slow down for the afternoon, relax in our own space and catch up on our “choresâ€. Sometimes we find it challenging to keep up on our journals, blog (no surprise to you guys) and plan our logistics for the coming weeks. This is especially true, as I tend to like to be always be on the go. So, it was nice to have some forced downtime.
The next day, the weather cleared, and we were able to head into the park. Paklencia National Park is known for its limestone canyons. It is primarily a hiking and climbing destination and isn’t high on the radar for tourists – well, except for climbers! Since we only had one day here due to rain, we cheaped out and didn’t buy the climbing guidebook. Instead, we looked for the tags on the routes to show the grade or made friends with the other climbers to borrow their book. There were climbers from everywhere… Brits, Germans, French and even a few Americans!
The popular climbs were all close together and basically right off the main hiking trail – so no approach. The limestone was quite polished due to all the climbers and the bolts were fairly spaced out, so we climbed conservatively. We ended up climbing 8 routes and had a full day of fun. So nice to get a few bonus climbing days as we are lugging all our gear primarily for our 2.5 weeks of climbing in Greece in October!
We both felt so much better after spending several days exploring the parks, getting some exercise and meeting some new friends. The downtime was much needed to get us in the right mindset to continue our exploration of Croatia’s Dalmatia coast.
