Plitvice Lakes
aka Plitvika Jezera
June 4, 2023
We left the coastal city of Zadar and drove about two hours inland to the Plitvice Lakes National Park. The weather was unsettled and the forecast was rain starting at 3 pm. We entered the park from our hotel at Entrance 2 not long after 11 am, its most crowded time. We took two boats across a lake, and when we got off the second boat decided to eat our picnic lunch before continuing the tour program of the lower lakes.
Our first waterfall, above, and the boat taking us across, below.
While we were eating, the sky opened, with very hard rain (below), lightning and thunder, for at least an hour and a quarter. We found a cover and sat with sixty or seventy other people, waiting for the rainstorm to stop. Eventually it lightened up enough that we decided to soldier on with the tour (Program F).
Within another ten minutes, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Tour F took us downhill past some lakes with small waterfalls. The waterfalls got larger as we descended. Due to rainy weather, the falls were powerful and misty. See the rainbow in the second photo.
We eventually made it to the largest waterfall, Veliki Slap.
After viewing this waterfall and other nearby waterfalls (plus the lovely turquoise colored lakes), we noticed the number of people going in the opposite direction to us had gotten so large that the line ground to a halt getting to the big waterfall. Luckily we had gotten there before the crowd got quite so big.
You can see the queue of people heading to the waterfall on the right side of this photo.
A few more photos below.
We exited through Entrance 1 and took the Park Service bus back to our hotel, near Entrance 2. By then it was raining again, so we decided not to continue to the upper lakes right then.
About an hour later, the rain subsided enough, so we ventured back out to tour part of the upper lakes. We decided against taking the whole tail loop due to the unsettled weather (the ranger at the park entrance was telling visitors to be aware of potential closure of parts of the park due to flooding). During our 95 minute walk, we had on and off rain but also sun, and the crowds were much less than at the lower lakes. The upper lakes had some nice waterfalls, too, and because of all the rain Croatia has had the past few months, the water was very high. In several places, water came up onto the board-walks.
Below are photos from the Upper Lakes. Look at how much water flows under the stairway.
Despite the rain (and crowds), our tour of Plitvice Lakes was really fun. The park is well organized and sign-posted, with buses and boats to take you around. The color of the water and the number of the waterfalls is quite remarkable. Here’s a schematic of the waterfalls.
Because we saw most of the lakes today and it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow, we will head out tomorrow to Istria earlier than we had planned, right after breakfast.
