Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes

On Tuesday morning the 5th, we woke up early and made our way through the quiet Budapest streets to Keleti train station, where we boarded the 6:05 AM train to Zagreb, Croatia.
On the ride, we napped, edited photos, perused our Croatia guidebooks, refreshed ourselves on some basic Croatian words, and enjoyed the views out the window of peaceful rural villages and countryside. We also traveled the length of Lake Balaton, the largest freshwater lake in Europe and a favorite vacation/relaxation area for Hungarians.


A six-hour ride brought us into Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, around noon. Here's the train station, where we stashed our luggage for a few hours.

Zagreb has no major tourists draws, and its location away from the coast renders it little more than a transportation hub for many travelers in Croatia. We ourselves only spent 2.5 hours in the city, but visiting for that amount of time gave us a very positive vibe about the place. We found the Zagreb quite charming, with clean parks, thriving central square/market area, pretty sights, and great gastronomical opportunities!

From the train station, it's a pleasant walk along a series of parks to reach the main square.


Jelacica Square, hub of the city

Interesting factoid: the necktie was invented in Croatia. During the reign of Louis XIII, the French fashion world fell in love with the neck-scarves worn by Croatian mercenaries, and the rest is history. In fact, the French (and English) word "cravat" derives from a corrupt French pronunciation of "Croat," which in Croatian is "Hrvat".

We headed up the hill to the Old Town, and climbed a bell tower to gain a panoramic view of the city. It was beautiful! Looking east:

Looking south (note funicular railway up to Old Town)

Looking north

In the center of town, next to some governmental buildings, is this colorful church. I think the coats-of-arms represent something to do with the non-separation of church and state (Croatia is Catholic.) There's also a weird colorful egg in front of the church, don't ask me what it's for.

This street was once a stream separating the two rival cities that now are united to form the Old Town of Zagreb.

Flower market

Outside the fruit market

Unquestionably the best gelato we had in our travels. The dark chocolate stuff was worth the trip to Zagreb on its own.

Back in the park next to the train station.

At the station, we picked up the car that was to be our transportation for the rest of the trip. Then, immediately, we headed out for Plitvice Lakes National Park, the main natural attraction of our trip.

Heather was the designated driver for the entire trip, because manual-transmission cars are much cheaper to rent than automatics in Europe, and I have never learned how to drive stick. Heather herself was a little rusty at first, but she did an amazing job driving that week, with an average of about 3 hours driving each day and including some pretty tricky roads!
Here's the cool driver with the cute car. (Or is it the cute driver with the cool car?)

At a stop on our way to Plitvice. Every single leg of our trip was amazingly pretty.

Finally, we made it to Plitvice and found a place to lodge that night. But unfortunately, when we arrived at the park entrance at 6 PM, we found that the park closed at 7. Regardless, we paid our entrance fee and made the most of the hour we had that evening to see a bit of the Lower Lakes.
Almost immediately, we were presented with gorgeous views of some of the park's famous waterfalls, far below us in a cliff-lined canyon.

The large waterfall in this shot was formed in a different way from all the other waterfalls in the park: it's the tallest falls in the park and was formed in a "normal" way, water falling over a limestone cliff.

All the other waterfalls in the park flow over complex "travertine" formations: the water contains calcium carbonate, which remains dissolved while the water is moving slowly, but gets deposited into calcium when the water moves faster—similar to the way stalactites are formed.

The travertine formations are very fragile, and so almost all of the extensive hikes in Plitvice Lakes National Park consist of painstakingly-laid boardwalks, enabling visitors a very intimate, up-close experience with the park's beauties.


The water is green, mineral-rich, and crystal clear.

Walking down some waterfalls


Veliki Slap (Big Falls)

We were disappointed to have to leave the park so soon, but we resolved to be back first thing in the morning, and found a nice rural restaurant for dinner.

We stayed in a "soba" (literally, "room"—just a room of someone's house that they rent out) on this street, where every single house advertised rooms for rent.

The next morning, we headed to the Upper Lakes when the park opened at 8 AM. While waiting for a boat to transfer us across the lake, we found a very friendly local.




Once ferried across the small lake, we started our hike. Amazingly, since we had arrived there so early, and started our trek at an unconventional spot, we were literally ALONE for about the first 2 hours of the day! This was quite astounding, as towards midday the park became SWAMPED with tourists, particularly large tour groups that had presumably arrived on buses in the midst of day-trips. If anyone reading this ever visits Plitvice, I highly recommend staying the night nearby and visiting the park early/late to avoid crowds.

Even more amazingly, for these two hours where we found ourselves alone we were actually in the most beautiful part of the park. Plitvice is a natural wonderland, with vibrant cascades rushing over complexes of travertine and lush vegetation, alongside mirror-like still lakes and surrounded by dense, healthy forests.



As soon as one climbs up (often directly over) a set of waterfalls, another set of waterfalls presents itself across a still pool or lake. Plitvice has something like 20 "steps" like this of varying heights, each one spread out over a wide area interspersed with islands, intermediate "steps," etc.

Some of the steps are quite high—this one is maybe 30-40 feet, and absolutely beautiful.

The park's charm is supplemented by the artistic layout of many of the wooden boardwalks, which are obviously nicely designed and skillfully built.

Some of these pictures would have been impossible to take later in the day when the crowds moved in!




Climbing up another "step"

Emerald green pools—thanks to that magic ingredient, calcium carbonate



Each "step" is populated by countless tendrils of falling water. Notice the second, higher, step behind.


Helpful signs let visitors know their current "step" in the sequence of lakes

A chameleon (?) I got a quick photo of before it scampered off

Back at the Lower Lakes

Fishies in the clear water


The Lower Lakes are less intricate in terms of surrounding foliage and layout of the lakes, but they gain from some dramatic cliffs that form a nice backdrop.

While being harried by huge tour groups, we noticed a cave off on a spur of the trail and decided to check it out. It turned into a tunnel that led to the cliffs overlooking the lakes, and actually gave us a shortcut to our destination! (The part we shortcutted we had already seen the night before.)


Top of the cave/tunnel

The stunning view from above


It's hard to believe, but in fact, Plitvice Lakes National Park saw the first violence of the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. It's amazing how much work must have gone into rebuilding the park and making it safe (many landmines were hidden in this area) since the end of the war in 1995.

Parting shot!


There are still several more chapters in our vacation! Sorry it's taking me a while to get these written and posted, but I have so much to share and I don't mind taking my time a bit :-)
Stay tuned!