Beep, beep, beep
“Huh?” “What?” “What’s happening?” “Oh it’s my phone and also an unnatural time for either time zone that I’m used to. It’s midnight for me at home. Ughhh.” Can you tell that I’m such a morning person? Anyone who knows me well can attest to that fact. My mother practically jumps out of bed, somehow already ready for the day. “We’re going to Plitvice National Park today!” She exclaimed excitedly. How does she do that? After a quick breakfast and a short walk over to the meeting point, waiting for our bus to arrive.
Soon, the minivan showed up, and we were headed off to the park. Our group was small - 8 in total. We took a tour through Viatour. The tour was around $250 total, and I was nervous to see if the tour was worth the price.
As we all piled into the vehicle we were told that it would be around a 3 hour drive out to the park. Three hours?! How are we going to pass all of that time. Our guide started a story with, “Let me tell you a little bit about the history of Croatia.” And with that, we passed the three hour driving time quickly.
From what I can remember the history went roughly something like this:
The History of Croatia According to Our Guide Note: please excuse biases, glossing over of terrible tragedies, and any errors. This is the history as far as I can accurately recall from our guide. Take this all with a grain of salt. If you would like a comprehensive history of Croatia check out this book. I am currently working my way through it; it's very well written. Lots of people live here. Byzantine empire take over! Bye-bye, hello Romans. Bye-bye Romans. Lots of groups of people joining together and separating, with Croatia staying mostly with Austria (because of the Hapsburg Empire). They don’t want to be part of the Ottoman Empire. Enter World War I. Side? Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lose the war. Groups of people join together, name Croatia and Serbia. What? Greater Serbia, we didn’t sign up for this! Croatia joins with Germany because they both lost the war. They’re both bummed about it. Break out of World War II. The Croatians don’t like who they joined up with - Serbia. Nazis come to take over Croatia and the Croatians see this as a time to use the Nazis to free themselves from greater Serbia. Looks like they joined up with the Nazis. Hmmm… Insert war crimes. WWII ends. Power vacuum? Tito is here to solve that. A good-bad country emerges: Yugoslavia. Good points about the country: stable economy, people are working and living generally good lives, on average, as long as you like Tito and Yugoslavia. Bad points: don’t like it? You’re in prison or dead. It’s also a dictatorship. Tito dies and a power vacuum emerges. Lots of fighting over who will run Yugoslavia. Another war. Croatia, as we know it today, is born. Ta-da! You’re welcome - it’s very difficult to find a history of Croatia in English. Trust me, I’ve tried. “We’re here,” our guide says. “We’re here?” We all ask. “Yes,” he answers.
We wait for our guide to get our tickets all ready, and we head into the park. By some miracle, there wasn’t a line to get into the park. Our guide told us that it is typical to wait for nearly two hours to get a ticket just to enter the park. According to our guide, next year the park will only be letting in timed entries into the park so that there won’t be crowds inside the park. If you’re thinking about going in the future, keep this in mind!
As soon as we got in the beautiful sights greeted us.
The entire park was jaw-droppingly beautiful. There are 16 terraced lakes and there are waterfalls everywhere. The entire park is a 13km loop that you can walk around quite easily.
“Ummm, can we go swimming?” I ask our guide, as beads of sweat start to form on my forehead. “No,” he explained, “this would disturb the ecological balance of the park. You can go swimming in Krka National Park. It’s very similar to here.” “So, how many tourists accidentally ‘fall’ into the water?” I asked. Our guide chuckled and said, “I wouldn’t advise it.” He clearly knew what I had on my mind. I started to look forward to visiting Krka on our tour, coming up shortly. For now, I’d have to put up with the heat, and day dream about going into the water. We slowly walked around the park taking in the views.
After our tour was over we headed back into Zagreb, went for dinner, and happened upon one of the best ice cream places that I’ve ever been to. Yes, one of the best. If you are ever in Zagreb, check out Vincek for ice cream. The ice cream had the most intense chocolate orange flavour that I’ve ever had. It tasted like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
I skipped through the streets of Zagreb, excited that the next day we would be leaving to go to Dubrovnik.
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