The main reason for me wanting to go to Croatia was actually due some photos I saw on the photography forum that I usually post on. It was a picture of Plitvice Waterfalls in Croatia. From there I googled Croatia waterfalls and from those pictures I knew instantly that I needed to add this stop to my itinerary. Plitvice Lakes National Park is located between Zadar and Zagreb, our destination for exiting Croatia. Thus it worked out perfectly as far as route of travel.
From Kevin's advice we booked a night's stay at the Bellevue Hotel. We arrived late so the first night we were unable to buy tickets to see the park. After eating dinner, I hear rumors that you can actually walk around the park at night. And since we are in the middle of nowhere and there is nothing to do at night, Mark and I venture towards the trails around 9pm, sunset
The road goes downhill to where a ferry picks up people and walking trails begin. As we walk on this trail there is still ample light out and we are able to see everything clearly. The sounds of rush waters comes and goes as we walk past steady streams of clear water. We finally reach one of the many entrances of the park and start walking along the uneven wooden paths. At this point it is pretty dark and the light starts to play ticks on our vision. I see a person run off into the forest up ahead in the dark part of the trail. A sign post looks like a person standing in the darkness. At this point we decide to turn around as this park is huge and we would rather not get lost here. The entire way back we start to talk about ghost stories as we are walking through the spooky forest. It probably sounds pretty dumb now that I am writing about it now, but back at that time in the middle of a pitch black night where we could only see about 5 feet in front us it was one of the spookiest situations I had been in.
The next morning, we buy regular adult tickets to enter the park because the lady at the ticket desk only accepts ISC cards. Her excuse is that there is no way to tell that the cards we have are actually student cards, even when the word student and university are written on both of them. The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the park grounds are the do not do this signs. They include but are not limited to camping, camp fires, kids jumping around, unleashed dogs, swimming, fishing, damaging nature and walking off of the path. The park is massive and there are multiple routes that you can follow to explore it. They are separated by the amount of time you want to spend at the park and Mark and I pick the 7hour path.
A bus takes us to the top portion of the park where we walk by foot. Then after walking next to the lakes, waterfalls and streams we arrive at a ferry crossing. At the crossing there are tons of fish following next to the boat as we cross the massive lake. Even in the middle of the lake you can see far into the water as it is crystal clear. On the other side we continue along the walking paths and then up a gorge to have bird's eye view of the main waterfall area. I'll let the pictures do the talking now.
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