The little country with so much to offer

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We had heard from our friends, Ben and Andrew, that Croatia was a truly stunning country and were not about to be disappointed.

The train was our choice of travel and although long we had booked enough in advance to get 29 euro tickets from Vienna. The only downside was that it was a 6 hour train ride.

We left Vienna at 5:45am and were on our way to Croatia, tired and excited. We did manage to secure some elbow room by throwing our bags in the seat next to us and, if that weren’t enough, I took my shoes off to clear us some more space. This proved an efficient way to get 4 seats for the price of two, god bless these smelly socks.

After getting our passports checked on 4 separate occasions and asked obvious questions Suzy managed to piss one of the customs guys off. How do you ask? By laughing at him (we disrespected his authoriti, Cartman from Southpark) and he made me open my bag. When the guns fell out I explained that we were merely trafficking them into Croatia and our families would be killed if we didn’t make the drop. He helped me stuff the guns back in the bag, bumped his chest with his fist, through up the “West Side” sign and mumbled something about 2Pac. Westside 4 life!

Delirious from the ride and the early morning we arrived in Zagreb around noon. After a quick glance at a map and a stroll outside. We easily found the signs pointing toward the city center and the tourist info office. The block wide park North of the train station paves an almost impossible to get lost route to the city center. You just have to walk straight through Tomislavov trg, Strossemayerov trg, and past the Zrinjevac, and soon you will be in Trg bana Jelacica, the center. This is also the home to the main tourist office, to the right, and is also where we went next.

The people in the tourist office were incredibly helpful. They helped find us a room, gave us great tourist info, and even explained the surrounding areas and the highlights (like Plitvcka Jezera). Zagreb while being a eye pleasing and walking friendly city doesn’t have all that much to see, and you can pretty much see all the sights in an hour and fifty minutes. I know this sounds odd, but seriously the tourist office gave us a map with two walking tours on it that would cover everything in the 1h 50min walk. Ok. We stay just one night and off to somewhere else.

We perused the red walking tour while also trying to find some veggie food and without really noticing we had done pretty much the whole red line walking tour. After finally managing some food we headed to the blue line tour past the Flower market, the Croatian National Theater, and the closed Botanical Gardens (oh well). With the last half of the tour being accomplished on our way to the city center originally that was it. All of Zagreb done in less than three hours so off to our hotel, Jarden, to rest and figure out our plans for the next day. The hotel was nice and for the location it was a good deal.

That night we browsed the pamphlets and decided that the next stop for us would be Plitvicka Jezera. The Croatian National Park made up of 16 lakes 2.5 hours away by bus. This was all the info we had besides the confirmation from the tourist office that a hotel was open there and off we went.

The next morning we grabbed a bus from the main station, just east of the train station, and off we went. The later half of the ride was beautiful and exciting as we winded through the mountains on the tiny roads way too fast. Around 2.25 hours into the 2.5 hour trip the bus suddenly stops and the driver walks back to us motioned us up and saying nothing but Jezero and flinging a pointing finger in the direction of which we had just came. We exited the bus to find nothing but a few houses around and no lakes nor hotels. Oh joy. What we didn’t realize at the time was the bus driver had totally missed our stop and had driven 2km past the park entrance and our hotel. On the shack across the street from us was a little map of the area, which we took a digital photo of and used it to navigate our way back to the park and hotel.

Forty five minutes later we found ourselves at Hotel Jezero, which managed to have rooms. Thank god! I had had the unnerving thought that since it was Valentines Day all Croatians would head for the romantic park, but we were good. Our room, which was significantly discounted from what normal summer rates are was awesome. From our balcony you could see the pristine teal blue lakes simmering in the distance and the ominous crashing of waterfalls in the distance.

After gathering ourselves and grabbing some soup downstairs we headed down the seemingly endless set of stairs to the lakes. We past through the gates, which no one was manning and reached the docks where ferries would transport out to different portions of the lakes inaccessible by foot. Although the woman at the front desk had assured us that the ferries were open the lack of any other human presence on the docks for 30 minutes had told us otherwise, and we decided to walk to the lower lakes which didn’t require a boat. We strolled the lakeside of the pristine clear blue water not expecting much more than what mother nature had offered us, which was breathtakingly clear water on a sunny day. Occasionally we would pass signs of the lakes and our point on them but they weren’t more than a reference point.

Almost out of nowhere we could once again here the thunder of water crashing down and we are at a beautiful waterfall. We snapped serval photos and continued on to find in another 100 meters another waterfall and then another and another. The water was pouring over cliffs routed through channels of moss creating hundreds of tiny rivers which poured at our feet. This place is undoubtably one of the most beautiful places we will ever see. As we past another one of the reference signs I realized that I had been looking at it incorrectly yhe whole time. The lake on the map where not a sky view, as most maps would be, but a side view showing the 16 lakes and how they pour into each other.

The best way to explain it is picture a staircase viewed from the side and on each stair was another lake, which cascaded into the lake below it and all of the lakes have significant basins which look still.

We hiked a little more before coming to fork in the path one side, kept going in the current direction of the lake and one side escalated into a cave. Of coarse we chose the cave route. Which we noticed once entering had light at the end of the tunnel, which was good as we were losing light very rapidly. The hike through the cave was short and steep; but it did allow us to snap some incredible shots from inside the cave looking out toward the waterfalls. The exit of the cave was on top of one the bordering ridges that channeled the lakes and now at least 250 feet above the waterfalls more chances to try to capture the beauty.

Luckily we made it back before complete darkness and decided to rest a bit. We were extremely proud of what we had accomplished today and thought we should look into our next place to visit. We asked the hotel staff about the bus to Rijeka, a coast city, and found out that the only one was at 3 in the afternoon. Which would work since we still had to see the upper lakes. Wonderful.

That night we snuck into the pool and sauna, which you have to pay for, and had a romantic Valentine’s dinner among our other 10 guests in the resort.

The next morning we concocted sandwiches from the breakfast supplied and now had lunch covered so we ventured back down to the lakes for some hiking. After some sign language and pointing the ferry operator sold us two tickets and we headed just across the lake to the trails. The ferry which had to of been electric was completely silence as it cruised us the 200 feet to the first stopping point. We hopped off and off we were again. This side of the lakes was much more snowy than the southern side and now the paths were not just on the banks but across the lakes and through waterfall sprays. Did I mention covered with slick melting snow? The paths here where made of old natural logs and were spaced about an inch apart with no guard rails. Luckily neither one of us slipped into the freezing water, but I wouldn’t bring any kids here if you plan on enjoying it yourself.

The upper lakes did not disappoint offering seemingly endless numbers of waterfalls after waterfalls. While this might seem repetitive I can assure you it was not, it was as if each waterfall had to out due the one before it, or beside it, for that matter and now the waterfalls were becoming huge. I believe they ended up maxing out at 70 ft. of pure hydraulic power.

After we had seen all the sights we headed back to Jezero to catch our bus to Rijeka.

After some tense moments of buses almost stopping at our stop and speeding off our bus finally arrived and whisked us away to Rijeka. The drive was stunning and dangerous and fast and nerve racking but after about 1.5 hours we had reached the apex of the mountains and could see the jaw dropping coastline in the distance. It timing could not have been any better as we were greeted with the dramatically red glimmer of the sun setting beyond the Adriatic Sea and its reflection. We descended into Senj and the sunset keep us occupied as we cruised the windy coastline to our destination past one after another seaside towns. Malibu really doesn’t even hold a candle to this place.

Upon exiting the bus is Rijeka we did our normal routine, of find the tourist office and see where we could stay next. We wandered the bustling walk streets until we found the all knowing “I” information. This is where they told us they only have three hotels in the whole city. Two of which were 2 star and one 4 star. So we choose the closest 2 star dump, The Continental. After finding our hotel we decided on pizza and then bed.

The next day we woke with some kind of crazy idea rent a car and drive the perilous coastline to Pula. God only knows who’s idea this was. We had no idea where we were going no detailed map and I had not driven in 3 months, sweet! The first 30 minutes in the covered go-kart was a bit unnerving because the bustling city on this Friday before Carvival was insane. Thankfully after 524 explicative’s we have made it out of the traffic and were on our way down the stunning coastline. Once we were sure we had shook the traffic we stopped I the little town of Moscenicka Draga, which according to the pamphlet has a whopping 500 winter residents. The quaint little town was beautiful, not in the sense of high rise hotels with pools and sunbathers crowding the coastline, but in a natural untouched coastline which building that been they for decades still stood with cracked walls and faded shudders. We soaked in the beauty of the pebble crafted beach for some time then it was off to the next little town.

We followed the coastline until we couldn’t anymore; and when we came back to it we put the windows down and sang to Hotel California at the top of our lungs with the radio keeping our beat. Not too long after this we started to see detour signs to Pula, and after ignoring the detour signs we ended up at a roadblock, and once we ignored the roadblock (and skirted it), we ended up at a bridge that was out. Now the smartass’ have to backtrack. After several attempts to follow the detour signs we stopped and asked a local tourist info people how to get around the out’ed bridge. Well you see that’s difficult. Figures. As it turns out it was too hard, just that the roads were made for 1 car, defiantly not 2. Down some more windy cliffs on edge roads and we ended up at Suzy’s dream town, Trget. Not because it bares a striking resemblance to Target but because it was the absolute smallest fishing village that we had ever seen with crystal clear blue seas in a 180 degree view with nothing obscuring the picture perfect scene besides the locals tiny old fishing boats.

Not too long after Trget we ended up getting on a main road into Pula, which has a big city feel, but some gems that we wanted to see. We followed signs to the city center and in no time saw what we had come to see, the giant remains of a 2050 year old Roman Coliseum. It was stunning and bigger than we had both imagined. We made our we up to it paid our entrance and began to wonder what it would had been like to witness an event here 2000 years ago. Both of us agreed this was probably the oldest massive thing we had ever seen. We cruised the rest of the town but the Coliseum stole the show and we decided to head back to Rijeka.

Two hours later and several giant tunnels we were back in Rijeka, which was still bustling trying to get ready for the Carnival parade on Sunday, which we could not stay for. After some dinner and some dancing in which little girls precisely imitated Gwen Stephani and J.Lo we headed in.

The next day was grueling and to keep it short involved a 2.5 hour bus ride, followed by our train tickets from Zagrab to Vienna. All I can say is that it was worth every minute of painfully tiring travel as Croatia is amazing place we will never forget.

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