Our days in Plitvice Lakes National Park and Rastoke in Croatia!

After hiking Krka National Park and canyoning in the Cetina River, we still weren’t done with exploring Croatia’s natural beauty! Damian, Noèmie and I drove to Grabovac, which is a little town near the most famous national park, Plitvice Lakes National Park. We decided to spend four days there, relaxing, hiking and enjoying our surroundings! And, man the area was definitely beautiful.

Hiking Plitvice Lakes National Park

The first full day we had in Grabovac was a rest day. We had just come off of travel from Hvar, hiking Krka National Park, and canyoning, and we (especially I) needed some downtime. So we slept in, swum in the pool where we were staying, played cards and just relaxed. But the next day we were on for Plitvice!

To give you some background, Plitvice Lakes National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the oldest and largest national park in Croatia. The park is almost 300 square kilometers and has 16 interconnected lakes and numerous waterfalls. It does get super crowded in the summer (up to 15,000 visitors a day!), which made it a bit of a nutty time to go, but we are still glad we saw it.

To help dissipate the crowds a bit there are a couple different routes that you can take when hiking Plitvice Lakes National Park. We decided to take the “C” route, which is 8km of hiking and should take 4-6 hours (mostly depending on crowds).  Here we are ready to go!

To do hike “C” we parked at Entrance 1 (which was super crowded and not super well-marked, so remembering how to find our car was one of the hardest parts!) and entered through there. We got to the park around 12noon and the line to buy tickets was super long. But, my Damian, being the sweetie that he is, had gotten up early and waited in line for an hour in the morning so the three of us could go straight in (you can’t buy tickets online or any days in advance). So thanks to him we got to start right away!

The first walk is to the “upper falls”, which have the biggest waterfall in the park. On the way to the upper falls you can look down and already start to see the gorgeous color of the water and how nice the blue looks against the green vegetation.

This part was crazy crowded, as the boardwalks are narrow and a lot of people have to walk the same way to get the full view of the largest waterfall. While it was a “must see” part of Plitvice Lakes National Park, the crowds made it not as enjoyable. But, the slower pace did allow for us to take some nice close up pictures of the beautiful water. It really is that blue in person, which is totally nuts!

When we finally got to the big waterfall, it was neat, but I wouldn’t say it’s the most impressive waterfall I’ve ever seen. There was a big line to take a picture in front of the waterfalls while standing on a big boulder, but we decided to bypass that and take these pictures instead. I still like them just as much!

To continue on trail “C”, after the big waterfall we hiked for a few kilometers over to P3, which is where a boat pickup is. Along the way we saw more beautiful blue water, some more waterfalls and even some cute little ducks! This area continued to be quite crowded as it is the main trail that most people (including the large tour buses) do.

After that part of the hike it was time to get to the lower falls, and to do that we took a boat from P3 to P2. This is the part that is the most annoying in the summer. Even though the (electric!) boats run back and forth pretty quickly, the lines build up at the dock, so we had to wait about 45 minutes to even get on a boat.

This was also the only part of the hike when we were in the direct sun and it was hot. But the boat ride was really pretty and by the time we got to the other side of the lake the crowds had thinned out quite a bit (yay!).

After that we basically did another few kilometers of a hike around the “lower falls” to get to the bus station at St3. This hike felt a lot like any other hike in the woods, except with a lot more waterfalls and a lot bluer water and a lot prettier viewpoints (ok, fine, maybe it felt a bit different than a regular hike).

There were also lots of fun parts where the path/boardwalk was built over waterfalls, and we enjoyed that little detail so much!

After we got to the St3 bus station we took a break and had some ice creams and then hopped on the bus all the way back down to St1. From there it was about a 10-minute walk to the entrance, but I got some of my favorite pictures on that walk!

Luckily we didn’t have too much trouble finding our car after that and only had a 20 minute drive back to our hotel. I’d say we really enjoyed Plitvice Lakes National Park, and it’s a must-do in Croatia, but we probably liked our time in Krka National Park a little bit better. I think it’s because (a) you can swim in the waterfalls in Krka (you aren’t allowed to in Plitvice) and (b) we went later in the day when it wasn’t as crowded. But both are definitely worth checking out!

Exploring Rastoke

After hiking Plitvice we took the next day as another chill day, just swimming again, playing cards, napping, etc. and then the day after we decided to go and explore Rastoke, which was also only about 20 minutes away from where we were staying. Rastoke is a tiny town of only about 65 residents, and its “claim to fame” is that it has its own little system of waterfalls around the town.

The town is really small so we ate at a local restaurant (where they keep their fish fresh by housing them in their own little stream!), played a bit and then walked around. There is also a neat swimming area where we saw lots of families enjoying the sunny day and we would definitely return there again to chill and relax!

What’s next?

Well, after a great time exploring the natural wonders of Plitvice Lakes National Park it was time to get to know the cities of Croatia a little better! So we enjoyed one last sunset in from our apartment and then headed off to see Zadar and Zagreb, yay!