Return To Plitvice Lakes, 1

It hadn't been a year since we did the Plitvice Lakes (and waterfalls), way back in early July of 2018, but, as I explained earlier, being as close to them as Venice, we had to do them again. They're that great. The previous blog posts are: http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/07/plitvice-lakes-and-waterfalls-1.html and http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/07/plitvice-lakes-and-waterfalls-2.html.

It was Easter Sunday, April 21, and we figured that all the Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Montenegrans, Bosnians, et al., would be in their respective churches, worshiping and celebrating. Well, maybe not the Bosnians. We thought we'd have the Lakes pretty much to ourselves. Our first clue that something was amiss was noticing that all the churches we passed driving to the Lakes were empty; closed. The second clue was the long traffic line to get into the parking lot. The third was that we had to drive half a kilometer to find parking. Then, when we finally got to the ticket office, we were told everything was sold out until the 1PM entry time. The place was crawling with people, unlike our previous experience, which was a weekday. This now was on a four-day European weekend, and there were license plates from Switzerland, Netherlands, France, wherever.

We got in at 1PM, still plenty of time to do the walk. For this edition, we wanted to start at the bottom and hike up to the highest lakes and falls. The angle of ascent is pretty mild, and this approach seemed better for Vicki's knee. The other difference from our 2018 experience was the season. It was high summer when we were at Plitvice before. Now it was early spring, prima vera, and the green, tiny leaves were just beginning to give the place a special glow. The day was relatively clear and cool but the light was a little brighter than before, even harsh in the early afternoon.

So much for the differences. It was still a great hike in a great place, and still among our best such experiences.

We're doing C

Starting with the biggest of the falls

An interesting shot of what it's all about...water cascading from limestone
plateaus over a 9 kilometer run; here you can see, in the distance, 4 different
little lakes and falls; there are scores at Plitvice

The color of the pools is incredible

Tiny green leaves...

A bigger lake

And more waterfalls

You can walk the largest of the lakes, but it's common to take a ferry; here, the
line is getting pretty long; I think the park service was surprised by the crowds,
but they adjusted and we never had to wait very long

Prima vera