September 24, 2013 - Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

We left Opatija after breakfast and headed to Plitvice Lakes National Park.  On the way to there, we passed by Otočac which was badly damaged during the war.  A lot of houses still have the canon and bullet holes on it.  Croatia government is responsible to rebuild the war destroyed houses,  However, they rebuild them based on the timing of the refugee’s intend of moving back.  Some of the owners of the houses had done some bad things to their Croatian neighbors during the war and they are the ones who may not want to move back to the neighborhood anytime soon in afraid of retaliation by their neighbors.  Therefore, there are still lots of houses in ruined status. 

We did stop by a honey stands which has honey with different fruits soaked in it and they have different brandy with honey in it too.

We stopped by Macola to have lunch.  There is a private mini zoo in their backyard.  During lunch, we saw a deer coming into the dinning room and eat food from guests’ table.  Interesting scene!

Plitvice Lakes National Park is the oldest national park in Southeast Europe and the largest national park in Croatia. The national park was founded in 1949 and is situated in the mountainous karst area of central Croatia, at the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1979, Plitvice Lakes National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage register among the first natural sites worldwide.

We started hiking up all the way to very close to the Big Waterfall (Veliki Slap) at the end of Lower Lakes. The height of this waterfall is 78 meters.  

Then we hiked up a beautiful waterfall (Galovacki buk) at the Upper Lakes. The height of this waterfall is only 25 meters, however, it is very wide and it is perfect for photo taking at this waterfalls.

Then we hiked up further to the boating point to take a boat ride across the Kozjak Lake.  With further hiking on left side of the Gradinsko Lake, we reached the train station to take the train ride back to the base.



A short bus ride took us to our hotel "Hotel Degenija" which is a beautiful small hotel in a small town of Seliste Dreznicko.  We had a very enjoyable stay at this hotel.