Plitvice (plit-vee-sha) National Park is one of the main reasons we are here in the Balkans. For Christmas a couple of years ago, my brother got Meredith the complete one hundred episodes of the Rick Steves’ Europe TV show. We went through the entire collection over the course of a year, and two shows jumped out at us – one on the river valleys of Austria, and one on Croatia and Slovenia. In particular, the I-have-to-see-that moment for me was when Rick covered Plitvice.
It looked like somewhere out of South America – lakes that looked more like lagoons, lush vegetation, and waterfalls cascading everywhere. I never would have dreamed that such a place existed in Europe. Since Meredith gives me much say in what European country we will go to the next summer, we began to talk seriously about Croatia and Slovenia back last fall, and we finally booked tickets in early January.
To say I was looking forward to Plitvice would be an understatement. It seemed as if it would be magical. So, I was delighted this morning when we woke up and, despite forecasts saying otherwise, the rains of the previous night had stopped. It was still cool (in the mid-fifties) and cloudy, but it was dry. After a fine breakfast in our fabulous B and B, we drove the two or three miles to the park.
I pulled into parking lot two (of two). We would later find out that we were halfway along the recommended path that Rick Steves gives, since he starts at parking lot one. It also turned out by the end of the day that we thought we had made the right choice – we liked exploring the more expansive upper lakes region first, and we liked finishing the day with the largest waterfall in the park, which is at the end of the lower section.
The park is made up of fourteen (our count) lakes or sixteen (Rick’s count) lakes. They are separated into the upper lakes and the lower lakes by a large central lake that has tourist boats running on it as a sort of water taxi. As mentioned, we started with the upper lakes. The upper lakes area has more and longer hiking trails, more lakes, more waterfalls, and more boardwalks that are built right over running water.
It was magical. As soon as we got off the short boat ride to the first upper lake boardwalk, I was hooked. There was rushing water everywhere – even under the boardwalk (and in a few cases over it as well). The plants were lush, and the falls were breathtaking in their variety – some were tall, some fell over many steps, some wound through plant life.
The magic had some slight curses, though – with such beauty came tourist crowds, even on a poor-weather day like today. Tour groups were particularly hard to navigate, since the boardwalks and walking paths were generally only two people wide, and tour groups tended to take up both lanes for ten or twenty people deep. Still, we found stretches of the park where groups were thin or even absent, so that was okay.
The rain was harder to deal with. It started to sprinkle and then rain pretty steadily after the first half hour or so, and it continued to rain for about an hour and a half. Since it was only in the upper fifties or lower sixties, getting wet was a big deal. We both had umbrellas, but a cold rain has a way of working into a body. By the time we were getting close to the tops of the upper lakes, all I could think about was the snack bar – I wanted a hot chocolate and a dry place to get warm.
The snack bar did have hot chocolate and was dry and was warm. And was crammed with people. Meredith grabbed a seat at my urging when it opened up next to her, and I went and got us lunch, since it was about 1:00. Happily, by the time we had finished eating, the lunch crowd had lightened and the rain had more or less stopped. In fact, by mid-afternoon, the sun started peeking through, so the magic returned.
We made our way down a less-used path on the far side of the upper lakes, which gave us fewer crowds, but also gave us some up-high spectacular views of the lakes and falls. We took our time, and eventually made our way back to the dock of the main lake, to take the longer ferry boat ride across the whole lake to the top of the lower lakes.
The lower lakes got off to a bit of bad start for me when Meredith and I got separated by a few mere feet that I could not politely cross as we waited for at least two full follow-the-tour-umbrella tour groups to get past a good photo spot. Once they were past, Mer and I were reunited and able to take our time along the bottom path.
The lower lakes area is not so spectacular on average as the upper lakes, but it does have some amazing small falls full of vegetation – the water weaves in, around, and even through the growth. The lower lakes finish up (on our tour) with two enormous falls, one of which is a river-fed falls of 250 feet. We made our way back up out of the lower canyon area by climbing through a cave/sinkhole, and then walking along a path back to the park bus, which would take us back to near our parking area. The upper path we were on had several overlooks that gave great bird’s-eye views of some of the lower lakes and falls.
We got back to our B and B around 7:00, having put in seven hours in the park, most of it on our feet and most of it spent walking. We were pretty tired. Happily, our B and B offered dinner, which was a multi-course meal on an enclosed and heated patio, with a Croatian guitar player who also sang. It was a nice wind-down for the day.
So, Plitvice did not disappoint me; I took over eighty pictures in seven hours. Plitvice was a huge reason that I have now seen amazing parts of Slovenia and Croatia, and we still have two full days of touring the Balkans to go.