October 2, 2019. Trip Oversight
“I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.”
-Anthony Bourdain
Top 12 Trip Picks
• Pyramids of Giza
• Parthenon – Athens, Greece
• Meteora, Greece (Kalabaka)
• Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
• West Cork, Ireland
• Banks of the Seine, Paris, France
• London along the Thames
• Luxor, Egypt
• Dublin, Ireland
• Peloponnese, Greece
• Dubrovnik/Trogir/Zadar, Croatia
• Cappadocia, Turkey
Lesson Learned: Americans don’t typically plan a vacation for Croatia. Well, at least not unless they stop over at Dubrovnik on a cruise. That’s a shame. The Germans have discovered that Croatia has delightful weather, friendly people, fabulous sights, beautiful beaches, great food, and a lot of bang for the buck. Good for them.
I get it that Game of Thrones has amped up Croatian tourism, at least for Dubrovnik, but there’s more to this country than Split and Dubrovnik. In fact, though these places have their points of interest, and Dubrovnik is absolutely the largest and best preserved medieval walled city still populated I’ve ever seen, they still wouldn’t make my top 5 list for the country.
In addition, Croatian wines are incredible and very, very difficult to find in the US. That’s a shame as well. But, then again…….maybe I shouldn’t hope for American to discover this fabulous get-away. So far, there are no plans for a Disneyland-Croatia.
Road Trips are Amazing
Seven months on the road and countless sites seen, cities lived in, countries visited, and cultures experienced leave you with countless memories, opinions, thrills, new friendships, and real-life exposure to images and places we’ve dreamed about our entire lives and twice as many more that we’d never heard of before we departed the U.S. It also leaves you with a yearning to see more. We were on the road for 213 days, eight countries (not counting Iceland, or Bosnia-Herzegovina), 51 beds, 22 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and who knows how many towns and cities.
But we’ve also got a list of the things we’ve seen or places we have really enjoyed. We are continually asked what we enjoyed the most or what we liked the best, and that’s tough to describe, or rank from 1 to 100. That’s like asking “What’s your favorite food.” or “Which is your favorite child?”, give me a break. Our trip experience was cumulative, and difficult to separate the experience into discrete events. Much of what we did or saw built upon the events of the previous day or week, and blended over our travels to paint our memories. Here are a few of our favorite memories from our travels in 2019. You’ve heard of these places before, but here’s a list of experiences we’d do again. Today, Croatia and Plitvice Lakes.
Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
Plitvice Lakes should really be called Plitvice Waterfalls, after all that’s why you come here. If you don’t care much for water falls in particular, and wet watery forests in general you can skip this post. We visited the Plitvice Lakes National Park in April. It’s truly an amazing sight to see. The weather was pleasant, though I’d keep your light jacket and rain gear close, it wasn’t crowded, and tourists and locals alike all seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Croatia declared this area a national park on April 8, 1949. It took another few years until it was internationally recognized in 1979 as a UNESCO World Heritage site. You’ll probably find the park listed on numerous “Top 10 Travel Destinations” on blogs and travel sites, and I definitely concur. I won’t even attempt to provide inside the park touring recommendations as there are tons of stuff about that on the web, and you can find maps of the routes at the gates to the parks. Here’s a site that does a pretty good job of breaking down visit options for the park (https://www.earthtrekkers.com/how-to-visit-plitvice-lakes-travel-guide/).
The national park is world-famous for its lakes arranged in cascades. The lakes are all interconnected along the course of the river. The lakes are separated by the travertine dams. The lakes are renowned for their distinctive colors, ranging from azure to green, grey or blue which range from turquoise like Lake Tahoe, to deep greens which look like the colored waters on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World. The colors change constantly depending on the quantity of minerals or organisms in the water and the angle of sunlight. Due to the features of limestone, many rivers drain away into the rock. Therefore, extensive underground river systems exist. Upon reaching hard rock, rivers emerge on the surface. This phenomenon of underground waterways is called the karst rivers. There are caves all over this region, including a couple within the park itself.
We found this park to be a must-see venue, well worth the time to drive to it from Zagreb. The park is in central Croatia, so it’s not close to the coast, and it’s not close to Zagreb, but it’s not an awful drive to get there from either location. I think it’s about 2 ½ hours from Zagreb and a couple hours from Zadar. Be aware, though the park is so popular that from June through part of September they have a lottery for timed entrance into the park. So, make reservations, get there early, or better yet, travel in the shoulder season so you beat the crowds.
We stayed in a little town named Otočac, which is a sleepy, but lovely little village renowned for its trout fishing on the Gacka River (they say they catch 6-pound trout here). We had a fabulous Air BNB of Ana-Marija which was spacious, spotless, reasonably priced, had a great TV, and she even left us a bowl of fruit and a couple of local beers in the fridge. It was a 45-minute drive to the park, but the ride reminded me of Cimarron, New Mexico or Ridgeway, Colorado, so we didn’t mind the drive to the park at all.
This is a small park, well, at least the sections with board walks, you can easily do it in two days; maybe three if you go as far back as is allowed. You can’t get off the trail routes and explore on your own. From what I’ve read they don’t allow backcountry hiking or overnight treks, but there are plenty of camp sites outside the park boundary if this is your thing. There are also caves and fishing areas all over the region, so you can get your rustic urges out of the way. Plitvice Lakes National Park was pure eye candy and we had fabulous hikes both days we spent there.
The park is only the tip of the sword of Croatia. If you only have two weeks for vacation, you need not plan on leaving its borders. Dubrovnik in the south, up the coast to Rijeka, over to the Istrian Peninsula, and then don’t forget Zagreb. Its all a visitor delight.
Where to stay: If you have a car, you can find many places within an hour of the park entrances, we thought Air BNB provided lots of options (and we only looked 3 days before departure). If you use transport for hire there are numerous hotels and guest houses close to the park. The web site Miss Tourist has looked into this, I haven’t, but here’s a snippet of what she (Yulia) came up with (https://misstourist.com/where-to-stay-in-plitvice-lakes-the-best-hotels/). There are lots of options, but they drop significantly during the summer months.
How long should you stay: I’d do two days in the park and three nights in your lodging.
What to see: The park and nature sights around are a full load for the average visitor.
Next Up: West Cork, Ireland