Chasing Waterfalls
Apologies to TLC, despite their best advice in the 90s, Nicole and I couldn’t resist chasing an extraordinary number of waterfalls in Croatia’s Plitvice Lakes.
About Plitvice Lakes
The Plitvice Lakes are one of the oldest national parks in Southeast Europe and span almost 300 square kilometres. The main features of the park are the 16 lakes which are arranged in a cascade and flow into one another. This cascading of the lakes has formed numerous waterfalls and makes this a truly beautiful park to walk through. Not to mention that the water in the lakes is soooo blue. None of our pictures below really do it justice.
Before we continue, though, first things first. Pronunciation. It’s taken us probably the better part of 3 weeks to figure out how certain letters are supposed to sound in Croatian and we’re probably (definitely) still getting most of them wrong. We thought saying Plitvice Lakes was simple but then we kept getting clueless looks by locals when we were talking about it with them.
Here’s how you say it (we’re pretty sure): Plit▪︎vick▪uh
Alright. With that out of the way, let’s get back to our adventure in this little gem of the world.
Leaving Makarska and the Nikola Tesla memorial behind us, we drove North for a few hours and finally arrived at Ethno Houses Plitvica Selo which is only 500m from one of the main entrances into the national park.
Ethno Houses is a resort with a number of small houses which are split into multiple suites. It also has a few natural amenities including a petting farm (complete with goats, bunnies, ponies, and a big ol’ pig), herb gardens, outdoor pool, spa, archery range, medieval style obstacle course, and other outdoor areas. Pretty much if you love the outdoors, this is the perfect place to getaway.
The resort is located in the middle of the large national park so you feel pretty unplugged while you’re there — especially since there was no wi-fi — which was perfectly fine for us. It was a great place to disconnect and relax so we decided we were going to make the most of it while we were there.
When we checked into our room, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the resort had upgraded us to one of their newly built deluxe rooms that included a patio and private hot tub! (Being on your honeymoon definitely has its perks!)
Our room was fantastic. It was brand new and had a medieval cabin feel. It’s probably the nicest place we’ve stayed on this trip so far.
After checking in and getting settled, we took advantage of a promo they had and booked a spa package that included massages, sauna, and time in their salt room (still not sure about the salt room but it sounded like an interesting experience). We then walked around the resort to see all it had to offer. However, once we found the petting zoo, well, let’s just say we got a little distracted.
The goats were really entertaining and always jumping around and up to some kind of antics. It was interesting to see that even though the gate to their pen was left open, the goats never really left. It might have been because it was getting late and they were starting to cozy up in their little house the night.
However, the next morning they seemed to take advantage of the open door policy and we found them enjoying the grassy areas around the resort.
That evening we went to the restaurant and grabbed a bottle of wine so we could take it back to our room and enjoy then hot tub upgrade we were given.
The next morning, we got up early-ish to get a good start on the day. We were told we should try to make our way to the Plitvice Lakes early in order to beat the crowds.
Since our resort was just a short walk from the number 3 entrance, we were able to bypass the majority of the tour buses and crowds that enter through the other main entrances—entrance 1 and 2. We still had a bit of a line to deal with in order to get onto the ferry which took us across the first lake and into the park but it wasn’t too bad.
Once inside the park, there are a number of trails that you can hike. They range from a short 2–4 hour hike to a full 6–8 hour hike around the park. We did a medium sized hike and spent around 5 hours exploring all the natural beauty it had to offer. Everywhere we went, there was a new lake or waterfall cascading over the edge of the forest. Truly breathtaking — mother nature at her finest.
It didn’t take long for us to understand why people told us to arrive early. As we were walking through the park, crowd after crowd started to appear to the point where some areas were so crowded you couldn’t walk by on the boardwalk. Nonetheless, it wasn’t too bad and the crowds were a small price to pay to see the park. Eventually, we just waited in an area for a wave of tours to pass and then we continued on and managed to see the park without too many people getting in the way.
At one point on the hike, we stumbled on to a set of stairs that led down a few hundred feet into a cave. I think it was called the cave with no floor or ceiling—or something like that.
It was super dark so we used our phone flashlights to see through the cave as we navigated around the stalagmites and stalactites that stuck out of the top and bottom of the cave.
Overall, we throughly enjoyed walking around the park and the waterfalls. My only regret is that we weren’t able to swim in the lakes. They looked so blue and refreshing. On a hot day, it was definitely tempting to disregard the no swimming signs and jump into the blue waters.
If you’re ever traveling to or around Croatia, make a day trip to the lakes! It’s definitely worth it and you won’t regret it.
