This nature’s wonderland called Plitvicka jezera in Croatian is a UNESCO world heritage site and rightly so. This breathtaking nature’s work of art needs to be protected!
We actually did not know that this place existed up until about 3 years back when one of our friends mentioned about it. He had said that it is amazingly beautiful and is a must see. So after being on our bucket list for the past 3 years, we finally ‘planned’ a ‘last minute trip’ to Croatia 🙂 haha I know you cant really plan a last minute trip but with me & Vin it always has to be a spontaneous decision about where and when we are headed to a new destination…
After some research on price comparison sites, with our flight & hotel bookings done we flew out to Croatia from Gatwick early on a Thursday morning. I hate early morning flights as that means waking up early but it works out so well for us as we get almost an entire day to explore our new destination without wasting any time on travel.
So we arrived at Zagreb airport and hired a car from City rent a car and drove to Plitvice lakes which took around 3 hours with a stop for lunch. I will write about road trip in detail in another post. We had booked a room for one night in Hotel Jezero-http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g303827-d317295-Reviews-Hotel_Jezero-Plitvice_Lakes_National_Park_Central_Croatia.html
The hotel was located inside the national park and was right by the entrance to the lakes which was excellent as we could just walk 5 minutes and reach the entrance gate or the ticket booth. Also an added advantage was that if you stay at one of the 3 hotels inside the park you can buy a one day ticket and use it on 2 consecutive days. The cost for a one day ticket was 110 kuna & a two day ticket was 180 kuna so staying in the park hotel saved us some cash!
Hotel Jezero
The park was broadly divided into 2 sections – upper lakes & lower lakes. There are 16 lakes all in one place and at different levels and they overflow into each other creating beautiful waterfalls when they flow into the lower ones. As we had arrived at the park at around 3 pm, we decided we would do the upper lakes in the evening as we had around 4 hours until the park closed at 8 pm. We had to take the buggy ride to the top most lake from where we started our trek walking down one level at a time.
As we continued walking on the wooden walkways created to blend in with the natural surroundings we were mesmerized by the breathtaking beauty that surrounded us. The water was crystal clear and the colour kept changing from blue to green to turquoise!
We trekked the lower lakes the next day morning and it again took around 4 hours as we just couldn’t control the urge to take loads of pictures! Who wouldn’t, when everything around you was so very beautiful! It was like I was transported to another world where nature was the center of attention- greenery, waterfalls, fishes and ducks swimming in the turquoise water created a scenery like no other that I had seen before!
It is quite warm there during august and you need to carry a few bottles of water and some snacks with you as it can be quite tiring…we finished the lower lakes and had to wait almost an hour for the ferry to take us back  to the main station point. The ferry point had restaurants and other facilities so you can have an ice-cream and chill out after a long trek around the park.
This was such a satisfying and unique experience. Nature at its best!
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