Cruising Down the Croatian Coast

Plitvice Lakes!

So the plan for the rest of Croatia was to basically work my way south. The main place I wanted to see here would be my next stop, Plitvice Lakes National Park. The largest national park in Croatia and one of the most beautiful in Europe. I had seen photographs of this place years ago and knew that I wanted to come here as soon as I could. The lakes only make up about 1% of the park, but they're the main attraction and definitely worth the visit. I highly recommend looking up pictures of this place, especially during the summer, because it’s pretty incredible. It consists of a series of these lakes all interconnected by cascading falls that pour down from all sides into each subsequent lake. The pictures are pretty amazing during the summertime, but the place is open all year, and winter has its own really unique feel to it. Rather than all of the lush, green vegetation surrounding the entire area, the park is covered in snow with half-frozen or even completely frozen waterfalls still appearing like they are cascading down into each subsequent lake, but frozen in time. It was really cool to see this place during this time of the year. You get to see it in a way that most people don’t when they come to visit this place.

When I arrived here I quickly made friends with a Korean guy named Ki. We agreed to explore the park together and made our way across one of the larger lakes by ferry and continued to hike along the majority of the lower lakes to get some really good views of the area. The only issue I had about visiting this place in the winter was that because the path was mostly covered in snow and ice, which made for an interesting walk anywhere you went, much of the walking trails were closed and got pretty sketchy to walk down even if you continued on anyways. So we weren’t able to get down to lake level on most of them, and had to stay high up on the cliffs while still enjoying the view of the lakes below. I’m still really happy to have been able to visit this place in the winter as it was really nice to have almost zero crowds there and it felt more like a personal experience. I would seriously come back here in the summer time though since more of the park would be open, including the upper lakes area, which looks like it consists of about half the lakes and is closed during the winter. I was able to hike through the lower lake area pretty quickly, but had originally booked a place to stay there that night because I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get through the park. Because it didn’t take very long at all I decided to leave that day and take a bus to Split from the lakes, continuing my way south.

A cloudy view of Split's harbor

I’m really glad I got to see those lakes and winter time is definitely still worth a visit, although I still think that summer would be better just based on the pictures I've seen and how much more of the park is accessible. So I continued my way south that day to Split and hopped on a 4 ½ hour bus to get there. I got there in the evening and booked a pretty nice little hostel for  the 2 nights that I was gonna stay there before heading further south to Dubrovnik. After walking in circles for a bit trying to find the hostel I showed up in the evening, and as soon as I showed up a couple of Americans whom I was sharing a room with invited me to go out for a drink. It was a pretty good feeling to immediately meet some new people as soon as I walked in the door, and we went out for a couple drinks that night getting to know each other. Once again, I wasn’t alone at all, and it would be this way for the next few days of my time in Croatia. Taylor and Zack were a couple of pretty cool guys from Iowa and New York who went to school in Southern California and were both on their own little backpacking trips. They both met up to travel together for a few days. Taylor was headed north after Split and Zack was headed to Dubrovnik as well. So after hanging out for a bit we both decided to visit Dubrovnik together when we left Split.

I really liked Split. It was a nice city on the coast that had a really cool old part of the city with snaking, maze-like streets to walk through and get lost in. It was really clean, and there was a really cool promenade situated right on the water near the main port of the city. I spent most of the next day walking through the streets and walking up to the top of a nearby hill, encircled by a pretty nice park that overlooked the entire city. The weather wasn’t great this day but it was still a pretty cool view of the city, and I got to see just how big Croatia’s second largest city actually was. I made my way back down to the city and spent some more time getting lost in the winding streets of the old town trying to find a new pair of shoes because I’m really gonna need some soon, but I was unfortunately unsuccessful...

I accepted my shoe defeat and returned back to the hostel. I spent some time on the computer relaxing for a majority of this day since the weather wasn’t too great and met back up with Taylor and Zack. We spent the rest of the evening going out into the town to see if there was any nightlife in the winter on a Saturday night. There wasn’t much and the place was pretty empty, but we found one bar that had a decent amount of people in it and had a pretty good time. We made a quick stop to the promenade after that and then stumbled back to the hostel to pass out and wake up wayyy too early the next morning so Zack and I could catch the early bus to Dubrovnik. I will say again, because it was winter there wasn’t much going on, but I can see how cool this place might be in the summer and there would be a lot more people out and about all around the city. I would also recommend Split for a visit. Again, summer might be better but also probably more expensive.

So Zack and I made our way to Dubrovnik which was about a 5 hour ride, but one of the most beautiful drives I think I've ever been on. As mentioned in my last post, the landscape was just stunning the entire way and it made it difficult to sleep when all I wanted to do was look out the window. On the right hand side of the bus was the incredibly blue Adriatic Sea, dotted with tons of little islands everywhere. On the left hand side was extremely tall snow-capped mountains with buildings of small villages lining the cliffs. So you had nearly all forms of landscape encompassing a single area and it was incredible.

I didn't care about sleeping at that point, and when we got to Dubrovnik we headed into the Old Town (touristy center of the city) and found our place of accommodation and began to settle in. A lot of these little towns in this area have some "Old Town" that, like I said, is basically where the tourists spend most of their time, but for a good reason. These "Old Towns" are so cool and I will admit that I fall victim to these little "tourist attractions" when I come visit these places. Dubrovnik was no exception, and the Old Town itself was truly exceptional. I'm really glad Zack found our accommodation in the center of it and it's definitely where we spent most of our time in this city. 

It's just too difficult to put into words how beautiful Dubrovnik is. I might be too lazy to describe everything I saw here but please try to see it for yourself. Make it a goal to come here for a vacation or something or whatever. Just go to Croatia and Dubrovnik and you will not be disappointed. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Dubrovnik, Croatia is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. We climbed the city walls and went to the top of the nearby mountain and got one of the best views of anything I've ever seen in my life. Snow-capped mountains in the distance winding down into foothills and eventually dropping off into the bluest, island-dotted water you've ever seen. It's absolutely breathtaking and every cliche in the book applies to it. Just go there. Please, just go.

Also the sunsets...the sunsets! Okay, I'm not gonna waste any more time even trying to describe this place, so after a couple incredible days in Dubrovnik Zack and I continued to travel south to a place called Kotor, Montenegro. I had no idea this place existed, but Zack was going there anyway and I was curious about it and about visiting Montenegro since I knew nothing about this country. After looking it up I was convinced that this was a place I should probably check out so I decided to once again tag along, and Zack and I took the bus there. A couple more hours and many breathtaking views later and we were in Montenegro.