On to Plitvička Selo

 We left Rastoke and Slunj around 4pm today, heading for Plitvice (pronounced Pleet-veet-seh) Lakes National Park.  Instead of staying at the large, expensive state owned hotels, we opted for a rooming house owned by an older lady named Nena in a villa called Plitvička Selo (pronounced Pleet-veech-kah Sell-oh).  Selo means villa.   This place is 120 yards from the edge of the canyon at the park. In fact, the creek that flows through her property makes the tallest waterfall at the park called Veliki Slap (means ‘big waterfall’).  We had some sub sandwiches from a high end convenience store, and we ate them on Nena’s ‘island’ surrounded by flowing water.


 We walked down the driveway to a couple of canyon overlooks in private property that take your breath away.  I had a hard time from being emotional, because it’s the first time seeing the overwhelming nature of the park after two or three years of watching YouTube videos about it.  When you got the real deal,  nothing else compares.

Here we are, seeing the most incredible thing in God’s creation, live and in person.  After our walk, we hung out with Nena’s (older?) sister and a couple guests from Holland and Austria outdoors, while Anne and I worked in a bottle of wine.  I gave everyone maple sugar candy and they all have diabeetus now.  Nena’s sister started choking on the maply goodness. We got worried for a bit, but she’ll be ok and will probably want more maple candy tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we will enter the park for the day, for a 6 hour hike.  Stay tuned…

Here’s Anne standing in a limestone (travertine?) outcropping.

The room at Villa Nena
First peek of the park canyon and Veleki Slap. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zadar

Image
 We checked out of the house in Sveti Rok with a sad goodbye to our host.  We loaded up and drove to Zadar, which is on the Adriatic Sea, specifically the old part of the city.  Just outside Sveti Rok, there is a ridge of mountains called the Velebit.  Although there is a pass over them, the convenient 3.5 mile (yes, that long) tunnel through the mountains is a pretty sweet time saver. Once through the tunnel, you go from Wisconsinlike continental climate to Mediterranean climate, all in a matter of minutes.  From thick greenery and fields to arid, warm, with olive trees, grape vines and palmettos everywhere.  After another 45 minutes we arrived at our hotel and luckily found a parking spot 1/2 block away (nearly impossible odds).  Our hotel is right on the seafront as seen in this photo: After check-in, we wandered around the city to many of the key sites.  It’s entirely walkable in a few hours.  We got gelato and even bought some handmade lace from a kind old lady who insisted I take
Read more

Plitvice Lakes National Park

Image
  NOTE: you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.          Today was spent at probably the most beautiful park in the world.  Plitvice is a chain of 16 lakes that are tiered one to the next with waterfalls.  Wooden pathways and earthen trails guide visitors along, over and through the waters.  A nice couple staying here agreed to join us for the day. We started at our rooming house for a mile walk until we came to the ‘secret’ Flora gate to the park that is meant for people staying in Plitvicka Selo like us.  Otherwise, it is 20km to the main entrance via a drive around the canyon.  The Flora entrance is near Point3, and there our program began with an electric boat ride across Kozjak lake to Point2. At point 2 we walked along the Upper lake chain through many areas of small waterfalls and scenery. At the end of the route is ST3, where we rode a bus tram to the main entrance 1.  This is where normal people get into the park and start the route.  We followed the trail back to Point
Read more