Plitvicka to Zagreb

Up this morning at 6:30 to head back to see the Upper Lakes today.  The entrance to the lakes is only 2-4 km away depending on if you're doing the lower or upper.  Our plan today was to arrive and take the bus up to the highest point and come back down (I don't know why we thought this was the only way).  We had a quick breakfast of the yogurt and bananas that we bought last night at the market and checked out.  Jay watched Outlander again last night until 2:30am so he's beat.

Yesterday we had purchased a two day pass at the ticket office, so today we just walked down to where the bus stops in order to get a ride up.  We chatted with the gate attendant though who asked if we minded some advice when we asked if this was where we caught the bus..he said to take the boat across the lake and to walk the path UP instead of down and bring the bus back down to the stop at the end.  He said for two reasons, first that it would be far better on your knees (thank goodness, I wasn't looking forward to all that hiking down hill because my legs still kill!  I actually took 2 Aleve half way down to where the boat launched) and second, then you are walking into all of the lakes and waterfalls facing them as opposed to passing them behind your shoulders.  Excellent advice, so we got on the boat.

There were probably about 30 people on our boat and it launched just after we boarded, I think it was the first boat of the day so we had great timing.  Then once we got off the boat (literally the other side of the lake was about 3 boat lengths away) we waited for all the rest of the group to take off so that when we strolled through we wouldn't have a tonne of people in our photos!  I hate people in my photos.

I love how the waterfalls go right under the boardwalk, no safety rails or anything.  There are some places where the water is rushing a lot, but usually there are rails when the rushing water is a higher waterfall and not just a series of small rapids.  The girls would LOVE this place.  I think I said that to Jay today a few times.

The water is so clear that you can see all the branches of the fallen trees in the water.  Its clear and a blue green colour.

We caught up at one point to a few people and were walking past after taking a few photos and the gentleman pointed out the rainbow to us..he said "You keep walking, you miss the rainbow"...very true.

So we stopped to enjoy it.

So many beautiful waterfalls.  Jay said at one point "how many photos of waterfalls can you take?"  I said I'd "take a bunch, post them all on the blog and then delete them because I'll never look at them again...until I'm looking through the blog and come to the post about Plitvicka and then I'll look at all the pictures of the waterfalls and think - look how beautiful they all were!"

We had done so well avoiding the groups until...traffic jam.

After about 15 feet of the entire trauma train stopping every 5 ft because someone took a picture (of a beautiful waterfall) and everyone behind them had to stop Jay was done.  Thankfully we only were behind them for one 5 minute stretch of trail and then we turned up while they all had to turn back because they'd taken a wrong turn (the leaders had missed a sign and all that followed followed).

This was near the end of the 2-3 hour hike which took us 1 hr and 10 minutes.  I think they account for the traffic in their estimate of how long it will take.  I am SO glad that we came early!

It was a little after 9am when we got back to the parking lot, still a full day at the park available to most people, so I gave our 3 tickets away - two to a younger couple who were just heading in and one to a family since they were the next people that came along so they just had to buy one less ticket. 

Mark and I grabbed a coffee for the car and off we went.

Its a 2 hour drive from there to Zagreb, where we are overnight and then fly tomorrow to Berlin for the conference in the morning.  After about 30 minutes in the car I realized I had forgotten to ask for a decaf latte and I could feel the caffeine coursing through me, not in a good way.  So I tried to drink a lot of water to see if that would help.

We arrived at the hotel and checked in and found that not only were our rooms ready (at 11:30am) but we were upgraded!  Very nice.

We said we would meet Mark at 12:30pm in the lobby to go and get some lunch.  I used that time to complete yesterday's blog (which I had written in the car on my phone, so sorry to the first 15 people who read it yesterday before I had a chance to fix the spelling mistakes!) and check in to our flights tomorrow and select seats.  Jay used the time to "rest" (watch Outlander).

When we texted Mark so see where he was he said he was in the Bistro patio attached to the hotel, so we found it and met him there.  He hadn't looked at the menu or anything and it was a little fancy schmancy though so we ended up drinking the water that he had ordered quickly while I researched a more casual place to eat close by.  There was a place called Burgeraj just down the street a few blocks so we went there for a casual lunch.  We all ordered the double cheese and bacon burger (looked and tasted like a Wendy's burger but nicer), actually Jay got the triple and Mark and I got the double.  And then Jay and I got a homemade chili pepper salsa on the side and Mark got a homemade onion jam on the side to add to the burgers.

Zagreb is very sketchy and I think we're in the nice part of town...

After lunch Jay and I came back to the hotel.  He and Mark are going to meet at 4pm (its 2pm now) to work out.  I used that time to work, start today's blog, creep on Facebook and call the airline we're flying tomorrow to confirm a couple of things regarding baggage for tomorrow's flight.  Jay used the time to "rest" (watch Outlander)...I called in to him to let him know its 10 to 4 and he was sleeping..probably for the last 10 minutes or so...we'll see if he works out or not, I told him I wouldn't go back in to wake him again, I'd let him decide.

He went down to the gym for 4pm and came back up around 4:45pm saying Mark hadn't shown up. Mark had no excuse this time I texted him as Jay walked out the door. Mark texted later at 5:15 to say he was down there and was Jay done..."yes, you said 4:00 not 5:00!" So Mark worked out and called is at 7:15 to say he was just going to get in the shower could we wait for him for dinner? Sure. I'm on the second episode of Outlander..it's really good. And Jay is almost finished Season 1..in 2 days. 

Before dinner Jay finished off the last episode of Outlander and came and sat down and started talking to me. I said "now you're going to talk to me?  You've been watching your iPad for 2 days.." Yup. Nope - now I'm watching it, stop interrupting me. 

Mark confirmed Zagreb is sketchy after walking around after lunch, he said every 2 blocks or so there were 4 police officers dressed in full gear.  So I researched restaurants for dinner and #8 and #11 rated on TripAdvisor are in our hotel so we decided to stay put. Since we didn't like Le Bistro (it's French, no wonder I didn't like the menu) we went to Zinfandels. 

We had an amazing meal and the service was excellent. We started with a bottle of Croatian sparkling wine with our appetizers. Jay and Mark both had Caesar salad with crispy shrimp, chorizo crumble and a dressing that challenges the Caesar at the Octagon it was so good. I started with beef carpaccio with wasabi bread and truffle oil and wasabi aioli. 

For dinner I had the appetizer risotto with pumpkin and crispy veal (tiny threads deep fried), Jay had the ribeye with potato croquettes and a chilli sauce (it tastes like a loose HP sauce and was really good) and Mark had an appetizer Croatian pasta in a cream sauce. It was all delicious!

We finished dinner around 11pm and went to bed - up at 6am tomorrow to fly to Berlin for the Manulife Conference.