Zadar and Plitvica National Park

We drove, parked and walked in the town of Zadar, a good sized city. Near the center of the city is an old town wall, the large harbor was filled with pleasure boats, and there was a fancy horse-drawn carriage entertaining some tourists. Again, as we have seen elsewhere in Yugoslavia, restrooms are labeled with a picture of a shoe. Easy to determine the one you need.

North and east of Zadar there’s a high bridge crossing a bay, there are many islands off shore, and high bare mountains all around. Near the town of Gospic, we saw a lot of soldiers riding horseback. But were they are on duty, or having fun?

The campsite in Plitvica was excellent, the facilities and the stores in the campground were as nice as any, but they haven’t made arrangements for enough level parking. We were very careful where we parked, some people were having a problem driving up the wet grassy slopes to get out of here.

Many people had told us not to miss the Plitvica National Park, where sixteen lakes are connected by thousands of little, hundreds of medium, and dozens of large waterfalls. It rained and rained all night and all the next day. Of course if it didn’t rain a lot, this natural phenomenon would not exist. We arrived at Plitvica National Park at 9:00 AM and rode in a very large set of trailers, pulled by a huge tractor, a couple of miles up a twisty road, to the highest lake. They have literature with pictures and labels to show a selection of ways to see many different sights, but in the rain, it’s difficult to see the signs, and almost impossible to read the maps.

We walked down the hill on the four feet wide wooden pathway that meandered over lakes, under waterfalls, through the Plitvica forest, up and down some steep ramps and stair steps, and most of the time that slippery wooden walkway had no hand rail. A scary walk through a gorgeous natural treasure, but a major inconvenience when we met others walking with their open umbrellas. It’s very beautiful, but very frustrating and almost dangerous, so when we arrived at our starting point (where we were to take a boat ride to the other half of the park) we decided to forget it for this year.

We have seen enough to know this is one of the world’s most beautiful natural sights. Next time we must see more.