Croatia Has My Heart: Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes

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We drove to Zagreb on Easter Sunday. Let me rephrase that. We spent the entirety of Easter Sunday driving to Zagreb. The bus ride was along the Dalmatian coast again, which was a win, and we even got to stop in Split for a brief break! It was a really good thing that we had loaded up on snacks because all of the things were closed. Everywhere. We got to Zagreb and night and found our couchsurfer's flat easily. His name is Julien and he's from France. He moved to Zagreb for a girl and fell in love with the city. He's a professional photographer who takes these amazing pictures and is super nice. Kathleen and I were exhausted from sitting on a bus all day (it's real, okay?), so we fell asleep pretty quickly.

On Monday morning we woke up wicked early to get a 7:30 bus to Plitvice Lakes for a day trip. Julien had looked up prices and times for us and had showed us some pictures he took of the lakes, so we were pretty stoked. We walked to the bus station and...the bus was sold out. Because of course it was. So we got tickets for a bus about an hour later and decided to kill time by eating because, duh. We got on the bus and settled in for a 2 hour bus ride (NOTHING compared to 9 hours yesterday). We drove through forests, and unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy. We passed by this town with all these waterfalls and we were like, "WOAH THAT'S IT." It wasn't it. We still drove for about 20 more minutes. We got off the bus and had no idea where to go. We walked across a bridge only to walk back the other way, because why would there be clear signs for a giant tourist destination like this? Ridiculous. Kathleen and I paid and went into the park. The first thing we noticed, despite the clouds, was how GREEN the water was. And all of the fish! The water was so clear that you could see ALL of the fish. We got on a ferry boat with a million Asian and French tourists and went to the big waterfall first. We got off and hiked for a while through these unbelievable terraced lakes with green water. We went off the path a bit (I mean, no we didn't) and were able to run our hands through one of the waterfalls. We went exploring in caves and took stairs up a giant cavern that could only have been carved out by water.

Plitvice lakes is set up so that there is minimal interruption of the natural flow (literally). The walkways that go through the lakes are shoddy wooden bridges and paths, and the waterfalls go right underneath them and sometimes the water pops up into your shoes. It's gorgeous. There are also hiking paths on the side of the lakes.

We were up top across from where the huge waterfall was, when all of a sudden we saw it. This unbelievable waterfall that went into a bunch of little ones and UGH. BEAUTIFUL. I'm bad at words with this. Don't worry. There are a million pictures posted at the bottom of this entry. We walked over to the big waterfall and took a million pictures of the water and the fog lifting and the hills and rainbows and I LOVE CROATIA.

Then we wanted to explore more, obviously, so we hiked up next to the waterfall (we definitely stayed on the path the entire time *cough*) and found these great look-outs and were sliding all of the mud. It was awesome. Finally we found our way back down to the ferry, had lunch, and went to the other lakes. The other lakes had about a bajillion waterfalls. We hiked around there for a long time and then decided it was time to head back to get a bus. We knew there was a bus around 5:50 but had heard a rumor that it might not be running because...reasons. We got to the bus station where this old man we had met earlier told us that there was a cab that would take 8 of us to Zagreb for 100 kuna (about 6 kuna to the dollar). I told him it was too much, but someone was already haggling for us. We ended up piling into this taxi van with a bunch of random people for a 2 hour drive back to the city for 90 kuna apiece. Kathleen and I were in the front, and I almost immediately fell asleep. And thank goodness I did because apparently the cab ride was terrifying. The guy was speeding and swerving around people and turns and cursing and all that good stuff. My nap was great. The driver dropped us off at the train station. We knew Julien's was right behind it, but we didn't know how to cross the tracks. So we just crossed. All. Of. The. Tracks. We got some funny looks. Later we were told it's illegal. Oops.

We got back to Julien's flat, and he took us out into the city for dinner. We had unbelievable pizza and then went to a craft beer place on the main pub street. We were outside on a really nice night when it started to rain in sheets. So we looked at each other and decided to have one more because obviously we're not walking home in that rain. By the time we went back it was clear again, and the city sparkled in the recent rain.

The next day Kathleen and I got up to explore Zagreb itself. I had heard mixed reviews about it. I heard it was great, I heard it was nothing spectacular. We had a GREAT day in the city. It might have been because the weather was gorgeous, but Zagreb is really impressive. It has some cool ruined buildings, some great little streets, awesome graffiti, and parks EVERYWHERE. Everywhere where there is potential to be a tiny park, there's a tiny park. It makes the city really warm and inviting. The first thing we did, though, was explore this old abandoned factory right by Julien's flat. There were trees growing out of it, and an entire wall had been blown down by wind in November. By wind!

In the city we got coffee and thoroughly enjoyed walking around. The highlight, though, was the Museum of Broken Relationships. People who had been dumped or had dumped someone or had a relationship that just ended sent in sentimental things and told the story behind the object and sometimes the relationship. There were a bunch from Boulder in there. There was also a really sad room dedicated to families--to fathers who had left or mothers who had died. It was really sad and beautiful. We spent a ton of time in there. In the afternoon we headed back to Julien's grabbed our leftover pizza, and went to the train station (the underground way this time).

The train ride back was beautiful. We watched the sun set over Lake Balaton and vineyards and had no problems crossing the border.

Croatia has my heart. I have never been to a better place.

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