Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

I know you guys already know the story of my 40th birthday trip that never happened.  Todd planned a super cool trip to Croatia for just the two of us. My Mom was going to come watch the kids.  The number one thing I wanted to see in Croatia was Plitvice Lakes.  But then my Dad started chemo a few weeks before my trip, and my mom couldn't leave him.  I don't blame her. I would have done the exact same thing.

So my kid-free 40th birthday trip to Croatia didn't happen, but I'll be DARNED if I'm leaving here next year without seeing these lakes!  So I interrupted our beach trip for a day at the lakes.  Too bad everyone, you're going with me!

Because I am NOT missing this amazing place!

The good news is that in my former life, I was a meteorologist.  And everyone knows, I'm a crazy planner.  So I had planned to do this day trip to Plitvice Lakes on Friday - to try to minimize the crowds by going on a week day.  But before we left for Croatia, I noticed it was a 90% chance of rain on Saturday.  And the whole point of this trip was to take the kids to the beach.  So at the last minute before we left, I switched our trip to the lakes to Saturday so we could maximize a sunny day at the beach, rather than spend it at the lakes.  And honestly, if you want to see those waterfalls really flowing, you definitely should visit on a rainy day!  And we were very prepared for it, with rain jackets and umbrellas.  Natalie even wore her rain boots!  And it's really easy to get there from Zadar.  We got tickets from GetByBus on the local bus line that goes right out of the Zadar bus station and takes you right to Entrance 1 at the park.  Super easy.  The trip is about 1 hour and 45 minutes.  

I'm sorry.  I'll bore you with just one more picture of this waterfall.  But wait til the end of this post because this certainly isn't the last you will see of it. This is the granddaddy of all of the waterfalls at Plitvice Lakes.  It's called Veliki Slap, or Large Waterfall (pretty creative with the name, there.)  This is what you see as soon as you walk into the park.  It's always recommended to go early to beat the crowds (I can verify this is true, even on a rainy day!)

The water in the lakes is an incredibly brilliant turquoise blue.  The entire area is made of travertine limestone and is subdivided into the upper lakes and lower lakes.  You can do both, but expect a very long, physical day.  The most dramatic falls are in the lower lakes, plus we had two kids with us, so we opted for route B.  This route takes about 3-4 hours of (easy) hiking and is 4 km in length (that's 2.6 miles.) Trail A would be easier if you had smaller kids but you don't get the cool boat ride across Kozjak Lake.

 My kids are older though.  If it wasn't raining and we didn't have a bus to catch back to Zadar, we probably would have done trail C, which includes some of the upper lakes and is 5 miles in length.

  Cross sections are super cool.  We never went higher than Kozjak Lake, which you can see is at kilometer 5 on the cross section.  We started at the big waterfall on the right, hiked up to the lake, took a boat across it, and then took a tram back to a spot near the entrance.  I think there was less than half a mile between that spot and the entrance where we picked up our bus.

You can see we got some rain when we were there, but it largely ended before lunch.  Look at that water!  It's turquoise because of the calcium carbonate in the limestone rock that surrounds the area, as well as the minerals in the water.

Path B is relatively easy.  Some of it is a flat, wooden boardwalk through the brush.  And I don't think there's ever a spot where there isn't a spectacular view.

There's even little fishies in the lake!

We took the recommended slight detour off of route B to see the Large Waterfall.  Look, there's hardly anyone here!  Hooray for rain!

If you were standing where I'm standing in this photo, you'd see a big, gushing waterfall flowing beneath the wooden pathway.

Money shot of me and Todd at the Large Waterfall, right after I poked him in the eye with my umbrella.

Big waterfalls, small waterfalls... Plitvice Lakes has got them all.

If you have little ones, Plitvice Lakes might not be right for you.  You obviously can't bring a stroller, and if you can't carry them or wear them, you might want to leave them at home.  Like the rest of Europe, safety rails aren't a thing here!

At this point, it was raining very little.  I feel like a place with waterfalls is probably prettier in the rain, anyway.

The word Plitvak means shallow, and these shallow lakes is how the park got its name.  However, most of the national park is comprised of forests and a small bit of grasslands.

But the world realized the beauty of the lakes within this national park, and rightfully, Croatia capitalized on that.  It was about $37 USD for adults and $18 for kids.

Eye level mini waterfalls.

Honestly, everywhere you turned, you would see such beauty.

At one point, one of the waterfalls was a little crazy and flowing down the wooden walkway.  They must have placed this here so people didn't fall.  I hope they secured that walkway underneath, though.  Only a little sketchy!



It was a bit more calm upstream, although we were still experiencing the rain drops.

In a totally random spot along the trail, they had this plaque about the naming of the waterfalls.  They were all named after Croatian opera singers!

Although there are 90 waterfalls here, there are also 16 lakes, such as this one.

Me and Todd at Slapovi Milke Trnine.

And now of course, a picture of Natalie and Grant at Slapovi Milke Trnine (seriously.. don't you feel like there are missing vowels in some of the Croatian words??)

This is what Slapovi Milke Trnine looks like without our faces in it.

More eye level waterfalls.  I can't get enough of them!

Natalie at the top of Slapovi Milke Trnine at Plitvice Lakes (previous pictures were at the bottom.)

At this point, the rain was starting to lighten up.

We were hopeful the rain would keep the tourists away and largely, at least in the morning, it was pretty quiet.

As we continued along the path, we came across some guys who were scuba diving. Not sure what they were doing (Practicing? Searching for something?) but it looked like that water was cold!

If it weren't for tourists, this would really be the most peaceful place.

But these little tourists ruin it for everyone!  (I kid, I kid...)

Visiting the waterfalls on a rainy day was really the way to go. It ensured we got to see the falls really flowing (even though the rain wasn't very heavy.)

For whatever reason, the kids wanted to keep their umbrellas up even after it stopped raining.

I snapped this pic of the water through the trees as we headed up the east side of Kozjak Lake (near the very northern part.)  I didn't even filter this, I swear!

Funny story about this fern.  I thought it was really pretty, and very tropical looking so I decided to snap a pic of it. As I'm doing so, I suddenly hear, "Mrs. Bailey?"  It was one of the seniors that just graduated from VHS, Joshua Himmer and his family!  His mom had been in the Addams Family with Todd, too.  It is SUCH a small world.

A few hours into the hike, you reach a resting place that has a restaurant and you can stop for lunch.  The lines can be long, so you can also bring a picnic lunch.  We grabbed some food, ate fast, and caught the boat across Kozjak Lake.

Goodbye lunch spot!  (Check out the line... thankfully there were several boats going back and forth, making the 15 minute trek across the lake.)

The boat ride gave us a chance to rest our legs and enjoy the scenery!

Several smaller waterfalls dump into Kozjak Lake. You even get to go up close and personal with a couple of them. 

More waterfall scenes at Kozjak Lake.

Once you get off the boat, you're supposed to make a u-turn and get on another boat to cross a VERY short part of the lake.  Of course, we didn't know this... so we walked around a bit until we figured it out.  But the scenes were certainly pretty!

By now, we haven't had any rain since just before lunch, but the park itself was still very quiet.  After you get off the second boat, you need to climb well over 100 stairs to get up to the tram stop that will take you back toward the entrance.

But how can you complain about the stairs when everything around you is just so beautiful?

The very BEST part of the trek on route B at Plitvice Lakes is after you get off the tram.  There's a stretch between the exit tram stop and Entrance 1 that has incredible views of the lower lakes from above.  We walked backwards just a bit to get this shot.

And of course, the kids had to do their usual Rose and Jack from Titanic.

Then we made the easy hike back to the entrance.  There's a few viewpoints from above that have the BEST views, so of course we had to take a family selfie.

We had great views of Milanovacki Slap from up above.

This was more of a forward view of Milanovacki Slap.

We were also above Slapovi Milke Trnine, which we had seen from below but now we certainly had a different perspective.

I highly recommend route B if you are slightly short on time (or have kids with smaller legs.)  The views from above are the BEST!

Look at that water! I can hardly stand it!

No, no... let's go up even higher so that we can have even BETTER views of the lower lakes.  I like the use of wood here to make the steps seem more natural.

I didn't know people were spying on me from up above when I was on this footbridge earlier.  But look at this!  Isn't it amazing???

One of my very best photos of Plitvice Lakes.  I didn't even filter any of these. I lightened a few (because it was cloudy and rainy) but I didn't mess with the color or add any filters.

Just one more of the lower lakes from up above.

The most incredible part of the day was realizing the importance of getting up early and going.  This was the line to get to the Large Waterfall. 

The Large Waterfall was still flowing nicely late in the day after the rain had ended.

Another pretty view of the waterfall below the Large Waterfall (which you can see slightly on the right.)

Look at how the crowds fluctuate between the pictures of this area.  Ebbing and flowing, much like the water.

Goodbye Large Waterfall!

Plitvice Lakes has been a World Heritage Site since 1979.  At this point, we went to the snack shop for some treats (and beer, which I feel like we earned!) before waiting for the bus back to Zadar. 

We crossed over this bridge on the E65 heading back to Zadar and I honestly thought this was a lake, but it's actually a part of the Adriatic, wedged between a long peninsula and the Velebit mountains.

In case that first picture wasn't cool enough....

We must have really worked the kids, because Grant passed out for pretty much the entire bus ride back to Zadar (which was about an hour and a 45 minutes or so.)

Until next time, Plitvice Lakes!  I can't wait to someday visit your upper lakes!