Plitvice Lakes

This has been a very long day on the bus. We left Zagreb early and drove almost three hours to the Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Established in 1949, this is the first and largest of Croatia's national parks. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. 

The park covers approximately 155 square miles of mountains and forests. But the main feature consists of a chain of 16 lakes separated by waterfalls, plus the confluence of two rivers with a major waterfall 285 feet in height.

Our local guide took us only around the lower four lakes. It was a very good hike, and unlike most group walks, went at a good pace.

The water in the lakes is full of minerals due to the surrounding limestone mountains. This gives the water beautiful colors that appear to change when viewed from different angles.

Following our hike, the bus drove us only 10 minutes to a restaurant within the national park where we enjoyed a lunch of lake trout.

On the road again, we had a long afternoon driving through mountains and high plateau regions. It was quite scenic, but slow going for the bus on many of the winding 2-lane roads.

Finally, the bus pulled off on gravel at a high point in the mountains. Our tour leader, Ida, insisted we all get out and climb the steep incline of about 50 yards that was ahead of us. As we came up over the rise, we were greeted with a spectacular view of the Adriatic Sea spread out below us.

Ida had a bottle of wine along, and using paper cups, we toasted our return to the sea.

The bus descended from this high point to the coastal town of Senj (SEN-ee), where we stopped briefly to photograph the Nehaj Fortress. Built in 1558, the fortress was designed to protect the harbor and road inland, primarily from Ottoman attack.

Also visible here were two small, bare rocky islands on which Tito built prisons for political prisoners.

At Senj we joined the Adriatic Coastal Road, which runs from Trieste, Italy all the way down into Albania. Views along the coast were very nice, with many towns and fishing villages along the route.

Our destination was Opatija (oh-PAHT-ti-ya), a fishing village that mushroomed into a winter retreat for the nobility of the Hapsburg era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Our hotel was originally built as a Hapsburg family villa. But by the time we got in, we had very little daylight time to explore the town.