mytravelbugbite

Today we woke up early to catch the bus down to the Plitvice Lakes National Park. We missed our bus after having to wait a little while for a tram so we grabbed a drink and waited for the next one. The bus journey took a couple of hours, not aided by a traffic jam half way.

Our guesthouse was near the village of Rostaca which has its own bus stop as it is where entrance 1 to the park although we managed to miss it so got off at entrance 2 and got a taxi back.

Guesthouse Sven is in the middle of nowhere and the lady who greeted us spoke very limited English, which was difficult, but the view from our bedroom window made up for it. We could see some of the waterfalls of the park which was pretty awesome.

We set off for the park for the fee of 280 kuna each for 2 days entry. I don’t have a problem with paying entrance to a national park however it was a bit of joke that you then had to pay extra to get a park map, so we decided to go without.

Initially we went down to the lakes and waterfalls close to entrance 1 including Veliki Slap, which is the largest waterfall. This area was beautiful with jewel coloured lakes and lush green forests however it was very busy with bus loads of tourists.

There are a number of marked walks throughout the park of varying lengths and levels of difficulty. We went for the longest, hardest one- route K. It started quite easily going around the edge of the lake, Jezero Kozjak, however it did then start to become more challenging with some steep climbs and poor footpaths. This may have been hard work but allowed us some seclusion from the crowds and some breathtaking views.

We didn’t complete the walk due to lateness in the day (and sore feet) so got the park bus from stop 3 back to stop 1. The food available in the area is rather limited and run by the park so overpriced therefore we picked up a few bits and had dinner sat outside at our guesthouse.

The walk we did today didn’t take us on the electric boat or along some of the walkways across the lakes so we plan to head back tomorrow to do some of those bits.