Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of the most visited places in Croatia and like a lot of National Parks in the US it is so popular that the Croatian Park Service has had to put restrictions on the number of visitors per day. When we checked into the campground yesterday the owner told us that we picked a good time to visit as the Park Service was offering a discount this week.
We both woke up before 7am in anticipation of going into the park and I told Ton about the discount. While I was making our coffee Ton went on line and said to get the special price you had to buy the tickets on line. While the water was boiling I took a look on line and saw we could not buy tickets on line the day of the visit, but there was a place to see how many walk up tickets were available per hour of the day. I panicked a bit as between 8 and 10 am there were only a handful of walkups available, but before 8 am there were hundreds. We are located about 10 minutes from the park gate and when I made that announcement it was 7:20. We set a record for making François road ready and rolled into the park at 7:50.
We got our tickets for the day, then took a few minutes back at François to get our breath. Initially when we entered the crowds were pretty light. But as the day went on the crowds built quite a bit, so were glad we had rushed over early.
The park was extremely well designed to give you a great walking experience. There were wonderful raised walkways over water, wetlands and woods. The Croatian National Park Service deserves kudos for the well thought out design of the trail system. It seems to strike the right balance between protecting the fragile ecosystem and allowing people to interact with the natural environment.
In general the walks were pretty easy, but there was some elevation change, and at one point we got on a little more strenuous trail that most people avoided, but it was worth it.
During our 5 hour hike thru the park I was impressed with the striking beauty of the place. I was also very impressed with how well the visitors behaved. There was no straying off of trails or boardwalks. People worked well together to enjoy the experience and share in taking in the beauty of the place.
We have visited many National Parks in the US and a few overseas and this one is really quite special. I think we caught it a good time of the year as the fall colors are at there peak which really adds to the natural beauty. We really recommend it to anyone. It is by itself almost worth a trip to Croatia.
Ton usually sends me five or 10 pictures to pick from for the blog. Today she sent me 71, this place was that special. We will be working on a photo album devoted to the park later in the trip.
