Our First Afternoon at Plitvice Lakes

The drive down to the Plitvice Lakes was beautiful. Tunnels, puffy clouds, blue skies...

The roads were good.  Croatia is a stunning country.

We were staying in the Plitivice Lakes Village, just past a little town called Korenica, which was the scene of a huge massacre in the war.  Bullet holes could still be seen on the houses, including some that were obviously patched. We dumped our bags and headed to the park and just did the first section of the park at entrance 1.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is the oldest national park in Southeast Europe and the largest national park in Croatia. The national park was founded in 1949 and is situated in the mountainous karst area of central Croatia, at the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The protected area extends over 296.85 square kilometres.

In 1979, Plitvice Lakes National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage register among the first natural sites worldwide. Each year, more than 1,200,000 visitors are recorded. Entrance is subject to variable charges, up to 180 kuna or around $32USD per adult in peak season.

And it is stunning - here's our first view...

 Beautiful tree lined pathways...

And waterfalls that tumble over the pathways...

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Boardwalks by the side of the lake...

And some down the middle.  I always felt I was going to fall in as my balance is hopeless.  I was so careful when people passed me...

Everytime you rounded a corner, you came to another lake, or another waterfall...

I had accidentally left my tripod in the apartment, so everything had to be handheld this first afternoon.

The lakes were so smooth the reflections were beautiful...

 I made Anne and Rachel walk by here several times...

This is what we all looked like!

There are bears in the park - but this is the only one we saw..

The waterfalls and board walks were stunning and we spent ages playing with our cameras to get beautiful waterfall shots. The park closed at 7.00pm but we didn’t leave until nearly 9. Which meant we didn’t have to pay for parking as the attendents had long gone and left the barrier up!

An Afternoon in Zadar, Croatia

We left the apartment in Split around 10am – and Steven and I sat in the sun by the port drinking good coffee in a café, while Rachel popped back to the market.  We then walked to the bus station and boarded the bus to Zadar.  Anne’s flight to zadar had been cancelled but we decided to juts let things ride and make decisions of what to do later.

On the bus we happened to sit next to a nurse who assisted in Cochlear Implant Operations.  She was based in a small town in Germany, although she was Russian.  Very small world.

We arrived in Zadar in pouring rain so taxi’d to the apartment. We dropped our bags then went out exploring - this is what greeted us right outside our apartment.  Fortunately it had stopped raining...

  

The Cathedral of St. Anastasia is a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Zadar. It is the seat of the Archdiocese of Zadar, and the largest church in all of Dalmatia.

The church's origins date back to a Christian basilica built in the 4th and 5th centuries, while much of the currently standing building was constructed in the Romanesque style during the 12th and 13th centuries. The site has been submitted to UNESCO's Tentative List of World Heritage Sites.

We wandered around the alleyways...

And found this amazing icecream vendor... There were lots of icecream vendors around Zadar but this one was by far the most popular. Proves that it's all about marketing!

We wandered around the small city taking photos, then found a cheap restaurant and stopped for a lovely meal.

 

I also found a very good quality, but very nicely priced makeup shop – I bought a lipstick! That brings my sum total of lipsticks to 67.  I have a lipstick problem!

The airline put on a van to Zadar for Anne but it wasn’t getting in until 1am, so Steven and I waited up and met her to walk her back to the apartment when she arrived.