Croatia: Zadar and Plitvice National Park

After the past several days in the islands, we were back on mainland Croatia.  Zadar is a city that we really hadn’t heard much about prior to our visit there.  To be honest our decision to go there was based only on 2 factors:  the amazing and unbelievable Plitvice National Park which I’ll talk about later and a cheap flight out of Croatia to France (our next stop).  When I found a Ryanair flight for under $100 per person from Zadar to Paris, it was settled.  To Zadar we would go.

The Airbnb place that we booked was great.  It was the nicest place that we stayed in thus far on our trip because it felt like home.  It was an actual apartment that we would rent everyday living back in the US and had all of the amenities of home such as a washer, dishwasher, etc.  When we met our host, Nicholas, he told us about how Plitvice was flooded due to the inches of rain the area had received over the past few days (see Hvar post where we experienced that).  He even suggested that maybe we would want to do something else instead.  This wasn’t happening; this is what we traveled so far to see so we were bound and determined to check it out anyway, flooded or not.

We spent the first day in Zadar just catching up on life.  Doing our laundry and planning other stretches of our trip.  Our internet had been sparse on the Croatian islands so it was a blessing to have good fast internet.  That is something that we really take for granted in the states.  Everywhere we go, the internet is fast.  The islands at times felt like the 1990’s in the US with regards to internet speeds.  We even had the chance to Skype our parents, which was great.  Being that we were on the road for over 3 weeks it was good to hear (and see) them and catch up.

Along with catching up on ‘life’, we explored Zadar and found the town very livable.  It seemed like a place people lived and not overrun with tourist, as was the case in Dubrovnik.  In fact we didn’t really see any tourists even in the popular old town area.  Zadar had it’s own version of an old town which comprised numerous shops and 2 key tourist attractions.  One was called the Sea Organ.  This was pretty cool.  Basically it was stairs leading into the sea that made organ noises that varied based upon the size and shape of the wave hitting the stairs.  It was not like listening to good ‘ol fashion church organ music as it wasn’t really in tune, but was cool anyway.  The other tourist attraction was called the Greeting to the Sun, which was an artist’s giant blue circular display on the edge of the boardwalk. It was a 360 degree compass that lit up at night after being charged by little solar panels during the day.  The ‘sun’ also changed colors depending on the waves crashing against the sea organ.  Very interesting.

The next day we set off for Plitvice National Park, which is like the Yosemite of Croatia.  It is the oldest national park in Southeast Europe and the largest in Croatia. Plitvice is made up of a series of 16 individual lakes that are connected by cascading waterfalls.  They go from the Upper Lakes in a series of steps down to the Lower Lakes areas.  In addition to the numerous waterfalls, the color of the water is another factor that really stands out.  The lakes are known for their distinctive colors, which can change from blue to green.  The colors change constantly depending on the quantity of minerals in the water and the angle of the sunlight.

After our 2 hour bus ride, we began Plitvice at the Lower Lakes area.  We were nervous about what our host had told us regarding the flooding.  When we searched for any information on the internet the previous evening we really couldn’t find anything.  This was probably due to the fact that we searched in English, not Croatian but that is beside the point.  When we bought the tickets upon arrival, we were told they were half price due to the flooding.  Additionally, a guide wrote on my map with circles and gestures – “ you can only go here”.   It appeared that we would be able to see most of the lakes, waterfalls, etc just not be able to hike as much as we would have liked to.  At least the park was so open (and an added bonus that it was cheaper).

When we first entered the park, within minutes we saw the view of the Lower Falls area.  It was spectacular!  It made looking at Niagara Falls a joke.  After looking it up, the large waterfall in Plitvice (Veliki slap) is a 255 foot drop whereas Niagara falls tallest drop is 167 feet.  My breath was taken away with how many waterfalls you could see from this vantage point and the uniqueness of how the lakes all cascaded into one another.

After our initial view, we descended onto the path that was at water level between 2 of the Lower Lakes.  This is when we could see just how much rainfall this place had gotten over the past several days.  First, our path was so low that the water was literally right up onto the path.  Your feet would occasionally feel a splash of water hitting the bottom of them.  I was worried that my shoes would get saturated or worse yet that we would be swept away in the rushing waters.  The water was moving VERY fast from one side to the other.  Things got crazier the further we walked.  Suddenly we were met with a posted sign that appeared to say that the path was closed off (it was in Croatian but apparent anyway).  Looking beyond the sign, we could see that rushing water overtook the path several feet ahead of where we were standing.  To our surprise many people were taking off their shoes and walking on the ‘path’ anyway while holding their shoes high in their hands.  We couldn’t believe how brave (and stupid) people were.  Was it really worth having your last breath here today, we thought?  I couldn’t believe that there was a mere sign and yellow tape but no park ranger ensuring that people didn’t traverse the rushing waters.  This kind of thing would never happen in America.  We could ensure people didn’t avoid the signs and act stupid anyway.  Now, many of you know that I’m a risk taker.  I like to live life on the edge, but this was too much even for me so we turned around and continued down another path that was higher and not as flooded.  We continued to a cave on one shore of the canyon then boarded a boat on another less intense lake to get toward the middle of the park between the Upper and Lower Lake sections.

In the middle of the park, we were at what is referred to as Station 2.  After the Lower Lakes experience, we needed to get to the Upper Lakes.  Because of the floods, you could not hike as you normally could.  The only way to get to the Upper Lakes area was by a park bus.  This turned out to be terrible because there weren’t nearly enough busses for all of the tourists.  We ended up waiting in line for over an hour.  The only way that we entertained ourselves in line was by playing Candy Crush and looking at the great photos and GoPro video footage we took earlier.

When we finally got to the Upper Lakes area, we found a nice circular boardwalk path that we could walk to the various different viewpoints.  I think all of the waterfalls were even more spectacular than usual because of all of the recent rainfall.  The water was just rushing.  This was one advantage of our visit now.  As we boarded our bus to go back to Station 2 to catch the Zadar bound bus, rain started to fall.  It was timed perfectly that we got to see everything that we wanted to in the park before the rain moved in.  Overall, this was one of the most spectacular places that I’ve ever been.  The scenery just took your breath away and was unlike anything else that I’ve seen in the world.  The lakes, the waterfalls, the color of the water, the people cheating death.  It was worth the day trip!

The next day we were off to Paris.  But we didn’t have a flight until the late afternoon.  This was nice so we could relax and sleep in.  The one item on my ‘honey do’ list for the day was finding a place to print our boarding passes for the flight.  With the budget airline, Ryanair, if you don’t print you boarding pass before getting to the airport they charge you 15 euro (about $20) per person!  Given our budget, we weren’t about to incur those costs.  I would find a place to print off the boarding pass!

This turned out to be quite the task.  First, we emailed our Airbnb host who to our delight told us that the newspaper stand down the road would do this for us.  I set out and found 2 different newspaper stands.  One lady (who didn’t speak any English) seemed to understand what I was saying and gestured to the one next store.  That one, the lady also didn’t speak English but just kept saying No, get out!  I was pretty frustrated and went back to our place and used the Google Translate App (thank God for that app) to spell out in Croatian what I was trying to accomplish.  It read “I need to have something printed off the computer.  Can I do this here?  If not do you know where I can do this?”  Happily I ran back down the street and showed it to the not so nice lady.  She read it and went off on a tangent for 30 seconds in Croatian.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  She then proceeded to write me a novel in really sloppy Croatian handwriting on a scrap piece of paper.  But only if my damn Google translate app worked without Wifi – ahhhh!  I had no idea what she wrote and just stood there for a minute even though it was evident that she was not going to print off my boarding passes for me.

After going back to the apartment (again), I tried to translate the note from the not so nice lady using the google translate app but to no avail.  Back to square one on my mission for the day.  By doing an internet search, I found what I thought would be in Internet store with printing capabilities.  The only problem was that it was in Old Town area (approx. 2 miles from our apartment).  I had only an hour before we needed to leave to catch our flight.  So I did what any sensible person would do and started running there (even though I just had a big breakfast with eggs, toast, etc).  If only I hadn’t drank that coffee!  Because I’m crazy, I continued running through the pain and searing heat of the day to make it to Old Town.  Much to my dismay, the there was no internet shop where I had previously seen in the Google search at the apartment.  I proceeded to find an information shop where a lady pointed me in another direction of Old Town.  I ran there and found that internet shop.  Upon entering I knew it was going to be difficult when I saw that the computers were still running on Windows 95.  What is going on Croatia – that was 19 years ago?  Needless to say, after 20 mins of trials and tribulations I finally had the sacred boarding passes in hand.  After a frantic run back to our apartment, dodging people, cars and wild dogs I was set free.  Screw you Ryanair, you’re not getting any more of my money!!!

Overall, we had a blast in Croatia. We enjoyed our time there and got to see a lot of what the country had to offer.  Yes, it did lack some amenities and infrastructure of a truly developed country and we did have some language barrier issues but it was a crazy and fun place and I’m glad that we included in our trip.