Plitvice at last!

me in Plitvice in the morning, photo by João.

We decided to wake up early and be at the entrance to buy the tickets at 7h (our guidebook advised to go to the park before 8h)... we were there at 7h30 but apparently the booth only opened at 8h. Oh well, we can wait in the cold! (I bought a hairdryer before heading to Croatia, and when I was about to use it this morning before the Lakes it did a weird noise and a lot of smoke... so I went outside with my hair wet. Nice!)


The first picture I took inside, everything was covered with that morning frost!

We were the first to enter the park, followed by a horde of chinese people.


One of the 2 goups of Chinese people we saw at the park.

It was a nice, sunny but a little foggy, fresh morning and the cold actually made us move and feel like moving.


...every path was covered in white!




Plitvice Lake

The scenery was breathtaking, and we were immediately sure it was all worth it... and the fall colors fit just perfectly the deep blues and greens of the lakes.
We decided to take the route "A" because it took between 2 and 3 hours, but you had routes for every taste, including 6 to 8hour-routes! (the longer ones). We were kind of sorry of not having more time, but route A was quite enough.


a tiny detail...


photo by João. Those colors were amazing!

We stopped for a cappucino in a coffee-house in the middle of the way (after about 1hour and something of walking) and oh, it felt so good to have something warm in a cozy place with big windows and that beautiful landscape all around us!
Cappucino gone (and lazyness too), it was time to walk again and try to compensate the time we were in that stopping-point.


Smaller waterfalls

So we were climbing the mountain, going up up up, taking pictures,being marveled, etc, when I noticed I left my backpack at the coffee house! And there goes João running (poor guy...) because we were afraid we didn't have enough time to get to the end of the park in order to catch the bus.
It was time to speed a little bit (I'm glad this part of the route was not so pretty), looking at the lakes... and waterfalls... and rumbling water... when I get this irritating feeling that I really need to pee. Damn!
From now on it was only João taking the pictures because I was too focused on trying to contain my bladder (how noble, Carolina! and how nice that you're sharing it with us!). My mind was racing: still about one hour of hiking to go. Ok. Oooh, what a nice ladscape. I need a bathroom. Oooh, big waterfalls. Amazing, but I want a bathroom. Lakes. Pretty. Bathroom!!
All of the sudden it was over...the feeling was bitter-sweet, if it was not for the fact that the bathroom was outside the park, it would have been a pitty to leave!


lol, here is João imitating the Chinese... when we went to these wooden lockers outside (before entering) and opened the door to place the bag, we heard some Chinese going like "ooooooh! flash! flash! flash!" (what the..? oooh, a bag inside an outside locker? that is so cool, let's take pictures? lol! And inside the park another one took us a picture, put on a big smile and waved goodbye... lol, I felt like a souvenir.)

We had 30 more minutes of waiting, so we decided to eat something traditional (at least it looked like that) and just rest at the bus station.


it was quite nice! it looked like a sweet "bôla-de-carne". Mine was peach and forest fruits, João's was of Chocolate and walnut.

The bus didn't take long, and soon we were in Zagreb again.
And there we were, with plenty of time until the train arrived.. and there goes one hour... and another half-an-hour... and it was almost almost time. Where the hell is that train?? I'm glad I had João with me, because I was quite pleased drawing when he figured out we were in the wrong platform(actually it was the right platform, the right number, but not the right letter, which meant we would have to go furder until we found it). We started running like crazy, and as soon as we confirmed we had found the right train, we hopped on and the train immediately took of. Uf! More than one hour ahead of schedule and we actually almost managed to miss it.
The rest of the trip went smoothly... and 6hours later we were home again.
Even after all the little problems, I can say it was a really nice trip. I have a feeling we will go back eventually, because there was so much left unseen...