A Little Tourism…Avoiding the Insanity at Plitvice
Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of those places that absolutely and totally lives up to it’s hype – it is stunning. Just. stunning.
The Croatia Lonely Planet has a picture of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Plitvice Lakes National Park as one of the main images and reasons to go to Croatia – and the picture was spectacular enough for me to add this country and national park onto my RTW route.
The bus from Krka dropped us off in the middle of dense and verdant forest – what a change from the gray and rocky coast! I was literally shocked speechless by suddenly finding myself in the middle of such lush forest environment –it’s actually been a while since I was this type of forest although we hike a lot.
The bus dropped us off about two kilometers from our guesthouse but we were saved the hike by our kind guest house owner zipping up to the curb just as the bus pulled out. After being cramped on several buses throughout the day we all decided to frolic through the forest for a bit before dinner.
Yes, I said frolic.
With a bit of fresh cool forest air cleaning out our lungs we all slept like babies, packed up some lunch snacks (saves us money to bring snacks: a hard boiled egg, bread, cheese and an apple did the trick) and took off for a full day of exploring Plitvice. We nearly got had by 
some scalpers at the entrance as they literally surrounded Helen, pushed us to the fringes and tried to pressure her into buying a park ticket with some really (not) compelling sob stories.
She was overwhelmed but a firm shake of my head, grabbing her arm, and completely ignoring the scalpers did the trick and we were soon safely ensconced in the ticket office. With a suggestion from the ticket lady we grabbed some maps and opted for the four to six hour mildly strenuous path through the park.
Like Krka, the whole park is zig-zagged with boardwalks as a way to minimize the impact of rampant tourism. Also like Krka, the place is crawling with tourists. But for good reason – it is just amazing and indescribably pretty. The lakes all had distinctly different colors because of the living karstic rock and travertine dams: blindly brilliant blues, azure and turquoise were set off by vivid greens and deep blue-gray waters.
Our hike around the park ended with a definitely strenuous uphill ascent to the top of the park – but, oh man were the views worth it. One side of the peak contained a view looking down on the largest waterfall in the park while the other side provided dramatic views of several of the lakes in succession.
The walk back to our guesthouse included a pit-stop for some ice-cream while we all silently processed the brain overload of such blatantly gorgeous scenery.
Beauty of Lakes Caused Spontaneous Hugging!
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Our Guesthouse accommodation for Plitvice Lakes National Park : Villa Jezerka, Plitvice Lakes. Really amazing and perfect. Free wifi is included and very strong and it’s walking distance to the park and the owner will drive you one way!
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Reading: Still reading Out of Africa by Karen Blixen!
Listening to: Deathcab for Cutie
Status: Jenn leaves the trip and heads back to LA- ahhhh!!
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