September 28, 2022

September 28, 2022

The weather forecast for Plitvice Lakes National Park was rain every day for the foreseeable future. So imagine our surprise when we awoke to sunny weather here. My lucky charm wife is batting 1000.

Plitvice was Croatia’s first national park. It is also a World Heritage Site. Plitvice is very unique. It consists of some sixteen terraced lakes that cascade downhill with thousands of waterfalls. The terrain is all Karst limestone. The water that seeps through the rock picks up minerals which are then redeposited as travertine. Besides forming cool terraced waterfalls it imparts a beautiful blue color to the lake water. It is analogous to Havasu Falls in Arizona. The only difference is that Plitvice has a rainier wetter climate.

We start our day a few miles from our hotel in the lower parking lot entrance exploring the Lower Lakes section first. We descend into the gorge via a series of switchbacks. At the bottom the trail consists of many miles of nice wooden boardwalks. Our first detour is to see the Big Waterfall (Velike Slap in Croatian). It is a thin wisp of a waterfall. From here the water leaves the park as the Korana River that flows into the Sava and eventually the Danube.

We continue upstream along boardwalks that hug the cliff and then criss-cross to the other side. The most striking element is how clear the blue tinged lake water is. The lake bottom and all the swimming fish can be clearly seen. It is stunning. The water is also very calm this morning allowing some nice reflection shots.

Water easily dissolves Karst limestone forming sinkholes and caves. At Supljara Cave, a sinkhole in the cliff wall, we take a detour and climb slippery steps up through it. At the cliff top we get a nice bird's eye view of the boardwalk along the moss-framed blue waterfalls. Beautiful!

Back at the bottom we continue upstream until we reach the biggest lake. There we take another detour climbing the cliff wall along a road. We follow a rim trail back towards the Big Waterfall checking out the several overlooks. Unfortunately the sun is right in our face making photography poor.

We return to the Lake and eat some snacks and rest our legs a while. We then board an electric boat that takes about twenty minutes to ferry us to the other end and the Upper Lakes section. We take the trail that hugs the right side of the first lake and then cuts back and forth between a long series of cascading waterfalls. Unbeknownst to me, Plitvice is Croatia’s coldest region and Autumn comes early. We are already seeing the beginning of the Fall color change. It makes for great photos and is great payback for having cooler temperatures than we are accustomed.

We continue climbing the Upper Lakes until we reach the last service stop. There we decide to have a small lunch. We chose to share the Cheese Sandwich. It is a tasty option in Europe. I was getting ready to order the ‘sandwich’ when I realized the Croatian word ‘Sendvic’ is just our English word with a Croatian spelling. It sounds roughly the same. I guess I know more Croatian than I realized.

After lunch we took the ‘train’ (motorized trolley) back to our hotel stop. Our legs are doing well, it is not raining, and we still have a few hours of daylight, so we decide to backtrack to the Big Waterfall overlook. The light should be good now. To do that we take two boat rides and re-climb the cliff wall for a much better photo.

Back at the lake level, we decide to do the Lower Lakes section again in reverse. It is very enjoyable as the crowds have thinned. Croatian tourism has exploded the last ten years and usually everything is extremely crowded. It is so nice to have this most scenic park now to ourselves. We stroll this section slowly to commune with Mother Nature. Back at the first parking lot, we find that the last train stop is almost a mile away. This hike back is farther than we anticipated.

Finally back at the hotel we take much needed showers, eat dinner, and retire early. It has been a long but thoroughly enjoyable day of hiking. Croatia has done a wonderful job of designing and building the great boardwalk trails to make this scenic park accessible.