I have dreamed of going to Plitvice National Park for many years and I have to tell you, it did not disappoint.
It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The water was so clear and blue. It was hard to believe that it was real.
Over the course of the two days that I was there, I saw many busloads of tourists come at 9am and hike the entire park in about 5-6 hours. At this pace, I feel that those travelers really missed out on the purpose of that park – to essentially stop and smell the flowers.
Plitvice to me seemed like a place you had to just absorb into your being. The tranquil sounds of the waterfalls and the winding boardwalk pathways were so peaceful.
Plitvice has 16 cascading lakes and basically you attack the park in two waves; the upper lakes and the lower lakes.
The routes for the hikes are somewhat hour-glass shaped. Both the upper and lower lakes meet at the boat dock in sort of the middle of the park. Since I didn’t have much time the first day because I stopped in Rastoke, I decided to do the upper lakes first at the recommendation of the park ranger. After about a 20 minute walk from the parking lot to the boat dock, I took a short boat ride and started heading up the path for the upper lakes.
I arrived at the park at about 4pm and I felt like I was the only one there. All the tour buses had left and moved on to their next destination and it was all left just for me. 
Since the lakes sit at the base of a canyon, the light wasn’t very good for photography, so I mostly enjoyed just strolling around the paths for the day. It was a good decision to go to the park that first day though because then I had a good idea for what was in store the next day. Sometimes the maps are deceiving so this was a good way for me to get my bearings as I knew the next day I was going to hit the park hard.
My hotel was located just outside of Entrance 2 so it was less than a 5 minute car ride back to the hotel. The room was simple but did the job for the two nights I was there. The best part of the hotel was that they had an on-site home-cooked restaurant. You could order one of about 10 different meal plans in the morning and then in the evening when you arrived back from hiking the park all day, your meal would be ready at the time you specified. 
This was the best option; way better than having to get back in the car and forage around for food at nearby towns after hiking all day. (My phone clocked me in at about 17 miles of hiking while I was there for the two days.)
The next day I had the whole day ahead of me, so I took my time and started at Entrance 1 which was just about 10 minutes away from the hotel. I got there early to try and beat the crowds and it paid off – for a little while….
We had rain overnight, so all of the falls were running at capacity and some were even bubbling up onto the boardwalk.
You are greeted along the Entrance 1 path by the largest waterfall in the park; appropriately named “Veliki Slap” translation: “Big Waterfall”.
The photos are a little deceiving and it is hard to tell the scale of these waterfalls. Suffice it to say that some were just 2-3 feet tall and others were 50-100 feet tall. Big Waterfall was the largest at 255 feet tall. On average, I would say most of the falls were between 30-40 feet tall. Here is an example of the scale. Here is the same location of Big Waterfall taken at 2 different angles. Do you see the bridge with people walking across it?
As you continue along the path for about 15 minutes, you come across them most iconic photo from the park that you see on all the tourism websites. It is exactly as it seems and even more breathtaking in person. From this vantage point you can see three of the lakes cascading into one another.
The color of the water was breathtaking. Depending on the depth of the water, it went from clear to sort of any icy clear blue to this sort of blue-green bold color.
I promise you that these photos are not doctored to make it look more vibrant than it actually was. This is the real deal. Also, if you look closely, you can see fish swimming in almost every photo I took of the water.
I read that there were lobsters in the water and it wasn’t until at the end of the day while I was waiting for the ferry back to the parking lot that I finally saw one. They aren’t big and I don’t think the eating type, but it was definitely a lobster.
My parting thoughts about Plitvice is that no photo ever created could ever do this place justice. This is one place you just have to see in person and store it in your memory bank for many years to come. …or in my case, until January when I get to see it again on my way to Slovenia!
