1 September 2017
It’s been one of those hit and miss kind of days.
We headed Southbound from Zagreb, and as always, realized that life on anything but the autostrada takes a lot longer than you would want to.
We managed to find Slunj okay, but because we could not check in yet, we continued on to Nacionalni park Plitvička jezera. You very quickly see what the main attractions of a country are by the size of their queues. We had no alternative- we simply had to work through it.
Nacionalni park Plitvička jezera is one of the oldest national parks in Southeast Europe. Sixteen lakes are interconnected with a series of waterfalls, with pathways that allow you to take in all the beauty of the crystal clear water in this beautiful park. The park seems quite organised, with ferries and buses that take people between points. The problems happen when it rains, and hundreds of tourists try to find shelter. But still this did not put us off. By the time the rain started, we had already been amazed by the colour of the lakes, and we had not even seen any falls yet. And so, armed with plastic ponchos, we eventually decided that the rain was probably there to stay, and that we should at least attempt to see some falls. And we did! We walked to the Veliki slap (Large Waterfall), and from here we braved the 280 steps to the top of the falls to get the postcard view of the lakes and falls. It was well worth it!
Despite the assistance of ferries and buses, the park is still quite strenuous, and by the time we managed to find ourselves back at the parking area, … well …. let’s just say that exhaustion clouded our judgement a little as to the exact whereabouts of our car. Oddly, Niel, with the help of a random stray dog, was the first one to find it. This might pose some challenges going forward, as he is usually the one that gets us dismally lost, and so now we would have to endure reminders of his car-finding successes whenever we doubt his sense of direction.
Our accommodation is worth a special mention. Rooms Buneta is run by a fascinating guy in the town of Slunj. Google it. It feels like this town was built on a series of small waterfalls on the meeting of the Korana and Slunjčica rivers. Houses literally have, for example, a deck built directly next to or above a small waterfall.
Even with some potential disasters, it was said a few times this evening that today was actually an absolutely awesome one.
Let’s see if we can walk tomorrow.
