More Croatian Scenes

A few more Croatian scenes...

Driving along in the northern mountains, one sees several underpasses like this

Which turn out to be animal overpasses: bears and wolves returning to the area;
we've seen a few of these in Montana and other such places

Easter eve we stayed at Kamp Zelina Dolena, as we did back in July; it's really
more an agricultural sosta, an orchard run by a farmer and his wife; he seemed
to remember us, especially after I recalled his fondness for the Golden State
Warriors, and he again brought us a couple glasses of his home-made high-test
plum liqueur; next morning, as we were departing, he brought out a couple Easter
eggs his wife had painted; a Slavic Easter custom, Vicki said

After doing Plitvice, we spent the night at the Plitvice Holiday Resort; pictured
above is its Indian village and playground

It's still under construction and expansion and typical of the development going
on all around Plitvice; we passed several such that simply weren't there last July

In addition to budget, regular, and luxury RV sites, Plitvice Holiday Resort has
tree-house cabins

Lakeside cabins (actually a sink hole)

Golfing and other recreation area (not to mention restaurant, lounge, general store)

More wilderness and Indian paraphrenalia, yet to be installed

And still more tree-house cabins; Plitvice has been discovered and soon, we
predict, will be going to a reservation system, like some popular US national
parks; you heard it first here...

Return To Plitvice Lakes, 2

Continuing our second visit to Plitvice Lakes national park, in Croatia...

On the ferry

You'd think they could just paint the thing green

Part of the ferry flotilla

More great color

 

Near the top

Great experience, again!

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

Croatian Porky

After driving 20 miles or so of Slovenia, heading generally south, one enters Croatia, which got some of the choicest bits of the former Yugoslavia. Like its northern neighbor, Croatia, at least in these precincts, is really into grilling, barbequing, smoking, rotisserieing, and other burnt offerings. Seemingly every restoran of any size has a rotisserie going with some unfortunate animal impaled on it. See illustrations.

We were stopped for a circulation alternee', and upon seeing this I immediately
pulled over for a closer look

Whereupon the chef de rotisserie appeared carrying another freshly impaled
carcass

The chef does not have a lean and hungry look, although, come to think of it, you
would not want your barbeque chef to look lean and hungry, would you? The
rotisserants do look lean and hungry, leading us to speculate, very briefly, on what
they might be...pigs on a keto diet? 

See: restoran is a word, and so is rotisserieing; look it up

Eventually, the head chef comes out to inspect and offer a few tips (the red apron
is always a give-away)

A little more heat

A little more smoke

Janjetina, from the back of the truck, means lamb; odojak means suckers, but
these are too small to be suckling pigs (we know suckling pigs); so we are going
with rotisserie lamb; yum; and thank you, Google Translate; we proceeded on

Rovinj

Rovinj is a nearly ancient town in the most Italian part of Croatia's coast. It is at the tip of a tiny peninsula, its buildings coming right down to the water. It flourished under Venice from the Middle Ages on, and it is flourishing right now, having been discovered by the tourist hordes, including us. A very picturesque and agreeable place. The campground/RV park at Rovinj is enormous and half an hour's walk along the beach and then the harbor to the city. We spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening exploring the sights and the many squares and alleys. We were in Rovinj July 4th. No one was celebrating, least of all us. A day of sadness, mourning...

Pix taken the next morning when the sun was better positioned

Glassy, clear Adriatic

No super-yacht here, just working fishing boats

1956 monument celebrating the struggle against fascism

The buildings, mostly residences, appear to rise right out of the sea

Main drag

It's a small place, area-wise, and the only way to grow was up and with very
narrow alleys

Restaurant seating

Church and bell tower of St. Euphemia

Atop the tower is the St. Euphemia weather-vane, more than
life-size, which we'll see later

Double-barreled downspout

Recycled material in the church building

The marina; no yachts here, either

View from where we had drinks (photo of Negroni and Pina Colada to appear)

Thus

St. Euphemia telling us a big storm is approaching from the sea

Adriatic sunset

It's 10 PM, and all across the Mediterranean, from Spain to Turkey, the kids
are  still up and at it; even the little ones