Nacionalni park Plitvička jezera

Nacionalni park Plitvička jezera

Is the oldest national park in Croatia.  Now you know. It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Register.  You know, that thing we, as Americans, are not a part of.

The day started with Stu being mean.  Actually, Stu was cruel. The next time the doctor asks if I fall down a lot, perhaps yes may be the answer.  The crime? Waking up early. Due to the anxiety of getting up early, I woke up before he woke me up with anxiety about being woken up.  (This makes perfect sense to me.) It always means I get to sleep on the way. The best part of sleeping in the car is that you get there sooner.

We bought tickets to the park for 20 Euros or so.  OK, 20 euros times 1,000,000 visitors and you get a lot of Kunas (before you exchange them to something more useful).  The cheapo in me is like, "20 Euros to walk around a park?" We had several people tell us it was worth the drive, gas, rental car, insurance, and entrance fee.  It had an odd Disney feel with missing animatronics. We would point out what creature was missing where along the way. The guide reads, "arrive around 7 am" and "go out of season".  Screw that. We had a three hour drive to get there and rooms were expensive. Looking on the map Frontier Town (not really- just the biggest array of falls) was two boat rides away and a three hour walk. Right, three hours? No way would it take that long.  We soon discovered this no no ordinary nature walk. With bathrooms, souvenir and refreshment stops in the woods, it was hiking in comfort. What was the most remarkable thing about the park were the paths. Everything was planked timbers one after another for miles.  Every board was flat and in impeccable shape. Anyone could walk this path if they had the stamina--unless they needed a railing for support. There were none. You could literally drown anyone at any given moment and most would think they lost their balance. It crossed my mind a few times.  Perhaps they didn’t see where they were stepping with that selfie stick and Yankees cap.

Someone had vision for the forest.  The planks crisscrossed waterfalls, lakes and paths.  Occasionally, no constantly, we would run into tour groups of Asians (and others) clogging up the path either coming or going in our direction.  Cameras would appear near anything interesting and then it was shuffling at best. The greatest problem is that like the Palace, there were no bad pictures.  The water was a crystal clear magical shimmering blue-green color. The lake looked like it had diamonds dancing on the surface of the calm surface. Along the paths the water was so clear you could see fish everywhere swimming almost under your feet.  Like any theme park with water, you could hear rushing water ahead and you knew something good was right ahead. What we soon learned is that you couldn’t tell which water attraction you were listening to. Around every twist and turn there amazing views of lakes, cliffs, and waterfalls.  We decided to take the path to see the big waterfall. It sounded like it was up ahead the entire hike. Eventually we made to our destination to bask in the mist. Mist is great for camera lenses. We saw a different path climbing a hill and decided not to backtrack the entire way to the beginning.  It looked like a fire escape on a high rise weaving back and forth up a cliff. At the top was a bus that drove us back. We had spent three to get to the falls, as promised.