A different side of Plitvice
Trip date: March 2, 2017
Croatia, and Plitvice Lakes National Park in particular, has been on my list of places to visit for years, ever since I saw a picture of Plitvice. You know what I'm talking about, the ones where it looks like paradise with beautiful blue green water, lush green vegetation, and endless waterfalls. Well, as it turns out, March is still winter season here so the park wasn't as green as I imagined at all.
As we would come to learn time and again, October through March are the offseason months for Croatia, meaning that a lot of things are closed or not running. For Plitvice, this meant a couple things.
The good:
- No traffic while driving and the best parking spots
- Cheaper admission ticket prices: we paid 55HRK whereas it's normally 110HRK (180HRK in peak months of July/August!)
- High water volume which meant tons of waterfalls
- No crowds to dodge on the pathways, except for the occasional tour buses that would show up for an hour or so and then leave
- Hotels in the area were super cheap (peak season of July/August were quadruple what we paid!) and virtually empty
The bad:
- A lot of the park was closed due to high water volume and flooding of the pathways (only the Lower Lakes were open to us)
- Almost no vegetation made for some sad scenery at times: the trees are mostly bare and only yellow grasses are visible if any, though that did mean we could see more of the waterfalls
We also thought that the boats and shuttle buses wouldn't be running until tourist season officially started in April, but turns out that they were running, just not very frequently (once every hour).
We were originally thinking of doing a two day pass and staying two nights in Plitvice. We ended up booking only one night though, just to see how things went before deciding if we needed more time. I'm glad we did that since the Upper Lakes of the park was closed so a full day was more than enough time to explore Plitvice.
We had looked up some routes for seeing the lakes online and had initially planned to follow either Route C or Route K (I'm still a little unclear on the difference between the two). You can see the various paths available here. However, upon arriving and learning that a large portion of the park was closed, we went to the Tourist Information booth to ask what routes were available to us.
Due to the closures, only Route B was open essentially. We would start at Entrance 1 and go down to see the Veliki slap, the largest waterfall (btw, "slap" is Croatian for waterfall). From there, we could follow the path around the lakes as far as possible; at some point, the boardwalk becomes flooded and you can't keep going unless you want to get your feet soaked. We would then need to backtrack a bit, climb up through a cave to Shuttle Station 1, and then go back down to follow the lakes to Ferry Point 3. We could then take the ferry across the lake to Ferry Point 1, and then take the shuttle from Station 2 back to Station 1 and complete our trip. So off we went! While the day we visited Plitvice was mostly cloudy and a little gloomy at times, it didn't stop us from taking a TON of photos - as you'll see below!
Funny story, we were heading down towards the lakes and had just come to our first viewpoint of the falls. A busload of Asians had also just entered the park and as we were about to leave, we saw a few of them start running, like full-speed running, towards the viewpoint! We decided to make haste and continue down the path before that group caught up to us. The rest of the day, we would see groups of Asians (the tour groups were all only Asians for some reason) show up on the boardwalks for a period and then the park would be clear and quiet again.
Anyways, after seeing the Veliki slap, we started to head back towards the main path. We noticed that there was a staircase next to the waterfall though, and it wasn't blocked. Since it seemed like we'd complete the circuit described to us pretty quickly, we decided to explore a bit and see what was higher up. Best decision ever. We climbed up the stairs, through a little tunnel cave, and got to a viewpoint of the Veliki slap.
As we were leaving, two Japanese girls showed up and asked us if we knew where the lookout for a specific view of the park was. We didn't, but that reminded us that we had looked up instructions on how to get to a less-known viewpoint and so decided to try to find that. It was relatively easy: once you climb above the Veliki slap and see the viewpoint, continue walking forward towards the main road. Turn right when you get to the main road and continue walking. You'll come upon a little house with a watermill and a wooden bridge. There's a small path on your right after the bridge. Follow that for a little bit and you'll come to Vidikovac sightseeing point.
This viewpoint isn't on the main routes recommended from the park, but it's arguably the best view of the park's lower lakes. There's also a rocky outcrop further along that I enjoyed clambering on to get some better views.
After enjoying the views a bit, we headed back the way we came and continued through the park, this time walking above the lakes instead of along the path that was suggested to us. It was really quiet and the forest had a serene quality to it. We followed the path to the Ferry Point 3, where we stopped and had a picnic lunch while waiting for the next ferry. After crossing the lake, we took the shuttle to get back to the first station.
From Shuttle Station 1, we headed back down towards the lakes to the boardwalk path that we missed out on earlier. We followed that along the lakes until it got flooded and then backtracked. At this point, the sun decided to peek out for a bit (it had been cloudy most of the day so far). Since it was still only early afternoon, we decided to head back towards our favorite viewpoint in the hopes of an even better view now that it was sunny!
We were able to get about 5 minutes of sunshine at our viewpoint before the clouds rolled back in. It was kind of amazing to see how much the lakes changed just within those couple minutes. I've read that Plitvice is something worth experiencing in all the seasons, and now I understand why, as the lakes' appearance is constantly changing!
We ended up spending most of the day at the park (~6-7hours), not leaving until 4ish in the afternoon. The one day visit ended up being a perfect amount of time, as we were able to see everything that was open without rushing, and still had the opportunity to venture off-path a little bit and explore and take it easy. Much better than the hour or so that the tour buses allowed!
While I never had that "omg this is drop dead gorgeous" jaw-dropping moment, I still found Plitvice to be immensely beautiful. I'm glad that we visited in March, even if most of the park was closed, since it was so peaceful without the crowds of tourists there. I definitely want to go back and visit the park again to see it in full bloom, but this visit was a good introduction to Plitvice and to Croatia. I wouldn't say that March is the best time to see Plitvice in all its glory, but it's still worth a trek if you find yourself there around that time!
