Plitvice Lakes National Park -Croatia-2016

I remember reading this on Instagram “Take a quiet walk with mother nature. It will nurture your mind, body and soul”
There is a reason why we call nature and earth as mother, because they are BEAUTIFUL 😉 It is out of our imagination, the surprises it holds.

Plitvice (pronounced as Pleet-veet-she) gives a feeling of peace and tranquility. The clarity and the color of the water against the various backdrops is a photographer’s dream. It is largely undiscovered jewel that should be one of world wonders.

This is huge park with chain of 16 terraced lakes joined by waterfalls that extend into a limestone canyon. As our itinerary had changed in the last moment we just had one day to see Whole Park which is quite an impossible stuff. Good idea to stay for an overnight at least to see the complete park at leisure.

There are 2 entry ways to the park but I think the best option was to take the entrance 2. The queue at the main entrance (Entrance 1) was very long.

There are several different paths (labeled with alphabets A, B, C etc) around the lakes ranging in both time and difficulty. The forests and paths are very well maintained and have sign about the trail in proper places.

A complete run through the park can be done in approx 6-8 hours.

From afar, the lake has a vivid, turquoise shade, and up close, one can see clear waters teeming with fish! Beautiful network of lakes with a unique bluish-green color due to the calcium carbonate in the water. In order to maintain this color, the water must not be agitated; hence people aren’t allowed to go swimming. There are a variety of longer trail circuits through the forest park. We could see the small beautiful lakes and waterfall. However, there are a number of stairs at various locations; the park is huge and too crowded too. And sometimes the crowd stopped moving where something was more beautiful. You need to wait to go further but worth to wait, and not annoying at all. One main thing you need is to be patient 🙂 .This is a place that is unique on the face of the earth. Every time we came around a turn in the path, there was another unbelievable view. I have discovered one piece of paradise on Plitvice Lake.

The upper lake took almost 5 hours and we were running out of time as we had our bus back to another city in about 3 hours. When we reached the boat stop from where we had to take a short boat trip toward lower lake the queue was huge! I was very disappointed to see this huge queue at first and thought its of no use waiting as waiting here would mean missing our bus.

I had almost made up my mind to go back and forget the lower lakes, but you see where there is a will there is a way!

When we were trying to get back, I did a little cheat (I know cheating isn’t good but I had to :)) and we just managed to sneak in at the place close to boat entrance J and finally we were towards the lower lake.

The lower lakes have an amazing deep aqua color due to the type of rock there. There are multiple waterfalls, which range from gorgeous to spectacular. These are all easily accessible via walkways that have been constructed to prevent tourists trampling and damaging the environment, but also, to enable most able bodied persons to view these amazing sights without needing to be super hikers. Nature in its fullness!

I wonder the experience of being alone in the whole national park would have made me feel like being in Jurassic park…hehe:-P

One of the main reason  to not to miss the  lower lakes (which is close to Entrance 1) was due to the biggest water fall of the park- Veliki Slap. It is 78 metre in height.

This place had added another dimension to my Croatian adventure. Photos don’t do justice to this beautiful park, because they can’t capture either the sheer scope of the park and all its waterfalls, or the sound of the water cascading from one level to the next all around you.

 

Boardwalks allow you to weave your way between, around, over and next to the dozens of waterfalls in this serene setting, and now I know why millions of people visit this park each year.

This park far surpassed even my wildest dreams of the beauty that is possible to experience.

Piece of advice –Buying an online ticket would save lot of time. In peak season (July – Aug) there are around 10000 people visiting daily.

Wear comfortable shoes and carry lot of water and food to eat.