Plitvice

I rented a car in Split and drove to Plitvice today. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that, rather than the two posts a day that I’ve been writing most days on this trip because the drive occupied the morning, I don’t have enough to say about the morning to fill in an entire post. That’s also the good news depending on your views on my writing.

And I have more good news/bad news. I’m not sure yet, but I think the next two days will also be single-post days. Lament or celebrate that as you see fit.

Then again, you don’t have to read these things, you know.

Morning Call

This morning, I got a call before I checked out of my hotel in Split. It was a Croatian number so I thought it best that I answer it in case it was one of the hotels I booked for the remainder of my trip calling to tell me there’s I problem with my booking.

Yes, I know. You’re right. I worry too much.

It turns out, it was one of the hotels I booked for the remainder of my trip calling to tell me there was I problem with my booking. Namely, the inn I was supposed to stay at tonight and tomorrow night. See! Sometimes I do worry about real things.

He had a problem with flooding in one of the rooms in his inn, so he doesn’t have a room for me tonight. But he said booked a room for me in another nice inn just up the road and, because I pre-paid at his inn, he’ll take care of paying for the room there.

He told me to come to his inn first and he’ll tell me about the other place. And, oh, the other place doesn’t have a room for tomorrow night. But, don’t worry, he’ll have the room repaired by then so I can stay the second night at his inn.

Just because I often worry unnecessarily about things going wrong that don’t go wrong, that doesn’t mean that things never go wrong.

Car and Drive

When I picked up the car, the person at the rental agency told me they didn’t have the size of car I ordered, so they upgraded me to a larger car. “How big is it,” I asked.

“Not that big. It’s a mid-size. It’s like a small SUV. Most people are happy when we upgrade them.”

I asked her if they had anything smaller. They didn’t. It’s a Renault Captur. I don’t know if that means anything to you. It didn’t to me. It does now.

She was right. It’s not huge, but it’s still bigger than I like.

I’m not most people. If the rental agency person is right, most people like bigger cars. I hate them. I’m a nervous driver to start with. But I’m less nervous about injuring myself than hurting other people and damaging the car. I want a car that’s easy to see over the hood. And I want one with the smallest blind spots possible.

Plus, with bigger cars, I worry about whether I’ll be able to keep it between the lines on the road. I’m not the world’s best driver to start with. Yeah, I know. You’re right. It’s not easy being me.

The drive was uneventful. I took a toll road for most of the way. It was a smooth road, with two lanes each way on a divided highway. For most of the way, the speed limit was 120 or 130 km/per hour. Traffic was light. And there were no hairpin turns.

The majority of the drive went through mountain valleys and a few tunnels. One of those tunnels was probably the longest tunnel I’ve ever driven through. I think it was more than three kilometres. By the middle, the air was redolent with eau de fumée de voiture.

Before I entered the tunnel, the sky was entirely blue. Not a cloud appeared above. When I got out of the tunnel, the sky was entirely overcast and a light fog hung in the air. It was kind of surreal.

After I drove for a while longer, the sky cleared again.

I completed most of the last part of the journey on a two-lane undivided highway. It wasn’t as fast going as the toll road, but not bad. Some of the curves were a bit tighter. But it still had no hairpin turns. And the road surface was smooth. And, again, there wasn’t a lot of traffic

I said “most of the last part of the journey.” The final almost two kilometres of the trip to the inn I was supposed to stay at tonight was on what could better be described as a long, shared driveway. It was a single lane with no shoulders on either side.

Fortunately, I didn’t come upon any cars coming the other way. I don’t know what I would have done if I did.

The Inn

I arrived at the inn where I’m not staying tonight a little after one in the afternoon. The owner wasn’t there, but the cleaner was. She called the owner and gave me the name of the inn I am staying at tonight.

That inn doesn’t have any rooms available tomorrow. So I couldn’t stay there for two nights. Instead, the cleaner relayed the message from the owner for me to come back sometime after 3:00 to speak to the owner about arrangements for tomorrow.

I went to the other inn, got my room, dropped off my bags, and drove to the entrance of Plitvice National Park, the intended destination of this stop in my trip.

By the way, both inns look very nice.

Plitvice National Park

Plitvice National Park is a major attraction in Croatia. And by that I mean it attracts a lot of people. That’s because it is exceptionally beautiful. But, did I mention it attracts a lot of people? And by “a lot” I really mean a lot. “Hordes” would not be an exaggeration.

The biggest draw in the park is “Veliki slap.” It’s a rustic hut deep in the woods. When you enter, a hulking, but gregarious man named Veliki, who dresses in traditional Croatian garb, slaps you. There is no extra charge for the slap beyond the park admission fee.

Sorry. That was a bad joke. “Veliki slap” is Croatian for “Great waterfall.” According to a sign at a viewing point of the falls. Its initial drop is 62 metres. That is into a small lake. From there it drops another 25 metres into another lake, for a combined total drop of 87 metres. That, reputedly, makes it the tallest waterfall in Croatia.

Plitvice National Park has two entrances. I went to Entrance 1, the closest to Veliki slap. From there, a short path took me to a view of the falls from upon high, across a valley from the mountain the falls tumble over. The sun pointed directly at me and my camera. Consequently, my photo of it isn’t great. It’s the image near the very top of this page.

From there, I and a horde followed a path that led down into the valley.

Boardwalk in Plitvice Park

In the valley, the path turns into a boardwalk that runs alongside and across a small lake.

And this is not your typical refined, sissified, urban boardwalk. No siree, Bob.

It is constructed of, not carefully milled wood like a 2×4, but rather fairly raw, wood beams, maybe as wide as the average human arm is wide. They planed the tops of the beams to make a flat walking surface, but the sides retain their natural curvy shape. As a result, there are small gaps between the beams because they don’t synchronize their curves.

The gaps are far too small for anyone to fall through or even get their shoes stuck in them. Then again, now that I say that, it would probably be a problem for anyone wearing stiletto heels. But I doubt you see much of that in a national park in the mountains.

While rougher hewn, the boardwalk at Plitvice Park shares a couple of traits with the boardwalk at Krka Falls I visited a couple of days ago.

For one, they are approximately the same width. I.e., about wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, but not much wider.

And like the boardwalk at Krka, for most of its extent, the sides are open, with no walls or handrails to defend against people falling off. And again at Plitvice, this made me nervous.

But unlike Krka, where they require people to walk in only one direction around the circular route of which their boardwalk forms a part, Plitvice Park welcomes people to walk in either direction on their boardwalk.

The hordes meant that large portions of the boardwalk were filled with steady, unbroken lines of people walking in both directions. The procession frequently stalled as people stopped to take pictures or because of pedestrian traffic jams.

The Beauty

I won’t deny that the crowds detracted from it, but the park is undeniably beautiful. The falls cascade down in a few streams. They aren’t as voluminous as the Krka Falls I saw the other day, but they are pretty in a raw nature sort of way.

By the way, I might have lucked out with Veliki slap. The guide on the tour that took me to Krka Waterfalls said that, after a dry spell in the summer, the falls here in Plitvice sometimes dry out and disappear for a couple of weeks. “But, our falls here at Krka,” she said, “Never dry out. Na, na, na na, na.”

Alright. She left out the “na, na, na na, na” part, but I’m sure I heard a superior sneer in her voice.

After the falls, I followed a circle route that took me back to Entrance 1 mostly via a different path.

I think some of the tour groups turned and went back to the entrance by the way they came because the crowds thinned out somewhat as I walked on.

Along the route I took, I came to a lake with some snack bars and toilets in a clearing beside the lake.

The park runs a shuttle boat on the lake to a point that I think is close to the second entrance. The line for the boat was huge. I think some tour groups come in through Entrance 1, take the boat, and have their buses meet them at Entrance 2. When I continued on the land route back to Entrance 1 there were few people on the trail.

On my walk, I passed through forests and by small falls, rushing rapids, small rivers, streams, and small lakes. It was very picturesque. So I took lots of pictures.

Meanwhile, back at the inn

At about 5:30 in the evening, I arrived back at the inn I’ll be staying at tomorrow night. The owner saw me drive in and invited me to the inn’s backyard. It’s very nice. There are some tables on a patio behind sliding glass doors off the inn’s breakfast room. Behind that, is a large yard with lounge chairs on a big lawn and a badminton net.

He explained the problem with the room. A woman tried to flush a diaper down the toilet and it backed up. The owner told me the room had already been cleaned and it will be ready for me tomorrow. So, he said, I should come over tomorrow for breakfast (my room rate includes breakfast) and drop off my bags before I head back to the park.

The owner offered me a cappuccino while I sat on the patio. I accepted.

A few other guests of the inn were already sitting there drinking cappuccinos. The owner then offered us all a local alcoholic drink.

I said. “No thanks. I have to drive back to the other inn and then to dinner.”

But he poured me a shot-sized glass of it anyway. Most of the other half-dozen or so guests also said no. But he pored them shots too. We all drank it.

Man, I forget the name of it, but that stuff is powerful. I had to look down toward my feet to make sure the drink hadn’t knocked my socks off and blown them right out from inside my shoes, which would have been quite a feat for foot undergarments.

The owner told me that the couple of other inns on the long shared driveway are closed for the season. Thankfully, that should reduce the chance that I’ll meet another car driving in the opposite direction on that one-lane driveway

But he also said that most of the better restaurants are also closed for the season too. I don’t think I’ll be doing any meal reporting here in Plitvice.

Wow. This journal entry turned out much longer than I expected. Maybe I should have split it in two after all.

Tomorrow, I plan to go to Entrance 2 of the park. That’s closer to some “upper lakes” walking routes and away from Veliki slap. There are connections between the walking routes that start from the different entrances, but I’m hoping the distance from the grand falls will reduce the crowds. We’ll see.

I still plan to write only one journal entry tomorrow. But, again, we’ll see.

More Photos From in the Park