Wheels Around Europe . . . . . . . : Plitvice Lakes National Park

We were up early this morning, on the road by 0645. It was a cool fresh morning as we are quite high up here in the hills and there was a heavy dew on the grass. The journey to the lakes took us through rural Croatia and there was a morning mist lying in the valleys.

This is very much off the tourist route for most and the lakes seem very remote.

The rising sun soon dispensed with the mist and it was another glorious day, but still much cooler than we`ve been used to and quite welcome.

Some of the villages we travelled through had clearly seen action in the Balkan war in the 1990`s. Some buildings had bullet and shell damage to the exterior whilst other were untouched, maybe the occupying families were of the wrong ethnic background and the house was targeted until they left ? who knows, Ethnic cleansing was the name of the game in this war and completely without justification, but thank goodness all seem to live alongside one another again and everyone can benefit from the peace and stability.

I was temped to stop and photograph the damage, but there were plenty of locals about who may have taken exception, so I didn`t bother.

The Plitvice Lakes National Park is just breathtakingly beautiful, no other words for it.

There are lakes and pools of turquoise clear fresh water with cascading waterfalls from the lake above, and down into the lake below it, stunning.

If nature wished to create a theme park, this would be it.

There are a number of labelled suggested walks you can do depending upon the length of walk you want. We semi attached ourselves to a English couple who at the start seemed very well organised and knowledgeable about where to go, but alas, when it came to it, he`d got no idea either. So that plan backfired.

The problem is the ticket office don`t issue a decent map, or that`s my excuse. The walks are well labelled, mostly, until a critical point where there is no sign post to direct which way to go.

The walk is on a mixture of cobbled paths but also a lot of timber board walks that extend out over the cascading water beneath, above the pools and waterfalls. The variety of nature is incredible, fish, giant dragon flies, butterflies, birds, wild flowers that would keep David Bellamy enthused for hours. The fish seem rather vulnerable to the birds though as the water is so clear, they are visible even at some depth.

No mozzies thankfully.

There is an electric boat you can take for a ride across the largest of the lakes and there should have been a shuttle train back, but just our luck, repairs on the route prevented it running today so a further walk was required. We walked a good bit further than planned today and certainly more than Sue wanted to, but it was a most enjoyable walk with spectacular scenery and a climate very similar to an English summer day, sunny and cool and a real purity and freshness in the air that`s probably not much like an English summer day actually.

I`ve read reviews on TA where the temperatures are in the mid 30`s and that must make it a bit of an ordeal.

I`m so glad we made the effort to come here, it`s one of those places in the world that you will never forget your visit and will always remember the beauty that nature is capable of creating.

For me it rates alongside the Grand Canyon, Pyramids and Sphinx of Gisa, California`s Pacific Coast and Niagra Falls, it is certainly a place that if anyone gets the opportunity to visit, I would without a doubt say go do it, you won`t regret it.

I hope my photos do it justice.

Oh, going early paid dividends as well, the park was very quiet when we arrived and it was only much later it started getting crowded and the hundereds of selfie sticks came out, and we had seen and done what we wanted to by then.

This evening we are back on the coast of Croatia in a little town called Senj and are parked up overlooking the sea. There is a little Taverna about 100 yards up the quayside with our reservation, so that’s where we will be tonight.