Croatia – Zagreb and Plitvice

It was interesting getting to Croatia from Lake Balaton in Hungary. It was very much so “planes, trains, and automobiles”, minus the plane part, sub in an 8 minute ferry ride to take you from one shore to the other, a decent two mile walk with fully loaded packs, two buses, and taxi ride. We even had a border control stop entering Croatia where the entire bus had to deboard the bus, supply passports and stand nervously for them to be returned (which they were). This is the zest of adventure, am I right?

We met a fellow American traveler named Doug who we hit it off with and shared an Uber to our respective places. Coming into the hustle and bustle of Zagreb, we got dropped off outside of our Airbnb. We walked across the street and through the front door (which was over 120 years old), through the carport, and up to our flat. Our hostess, Ivona, kindly welcomed us and we settled in. This place was unusual and in a great way. It was almost 200 years old, and it’s served as home to many walks of life including scientists, artists, and many in between.

It was maybe fifteen minutes in our new temporary home when a knock came on the door. It was our neighbor who kindly invited us to come share some grapes and rakija (Croatian moonshine). We came to find out he was a Serbian poet and novelist staying in Zagreb for extended period of time while working on a new piece. He also used to own a record store, and we talked about our love of funk and rock music while listening to Curtis Mayfield and Muddy Waters. Thanks, Svonko for the good music, good spirits, and good convo. We’ll be on the lookout for future publications!

The next day, we explored Zagreb. This included checking out the open air market where they invited folks from northern Croatia that weekend to sell their handmade goods.

We became aware early on of the fact that they can literally grow everything in Croatia, and we were stoked. Peaches, grapes, tomatoes, cold weather crops, etc. They also make this amazing sauce called ajvar which consists of any combination of tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, and paprika peppers. We’ve only known of this almost two weeks, and we’ve killed two sizable jars. Lol. Oops.

We later met up with our American friend Doug and our tour guide, Luka, for a guided tour of Zagreb. The tour was really great (shout out to Luka), and we witnessed a Croatian wedding AND in the same exact spot 15 minutes later we found ourselves in the middle of a climate change rally! We told Luka he really outdid himself on our tour. Haha.

Other cool things on the tour included the world’s shortest funicular (lasted 60 seconds), still functioning meterological station (over 135 years old) that studied the effects of changing climate on human health, a tunnel constructed during WWII which served as bomb shelter at that time and during the war for Croatian independence. It apparently served as the location for some recent and pretty epic rave parties. Also, we got to walk through a series of 5 connected parks throughout the city. There’s a lot of really interesting history here, both happy and also more painful, but we appreciated learning about some of it.

After the tour, we also enjoyed some strukli (a local cheesy casserole-esque dish) with Doug. It was plate-scraping good.

Other things we did while in Zagreb included going to a historical cemetary dating back to the 19th century where people of various religions, ethnicities, and social and economic class were all buried alongside each other. As weird as it sounds, this was one of the more beautiful places we visited, and I’d strongly recommend if you’re in the area. No pictures of headstones for respect of the deceased, just the main (and beautiful) chapel building.

Morgan went to a sweet local jazz funk dive bar called Bacchus Saturday night to watch a local band called Robostrop and the CEO. This was a converted wine cellar.

Sunday we left by bus for Plitvice National Park. We got in late afternoon, and we hiked for about a couple miles to our Airbnb. We were told you should dedicate roughly 5-6 hours to the park and to get there as early as possible to avoid the crowds. The forecast called for a downpour the next day, and we were nervous.

We got up the next morning at 6 and the rain appeared to be holding off. We got our rain gear on, and we headed out the door. We got an early start into the park, and it was beautiful. I had told Morgan when I Googled pictures of the park beforehand, I assumed a good chunk of the pictures had to be photoshopped. Turns out only maybe some of them are, but I was completely blown away at the real beauty of these lakes.

There’s a series of 16 lakes that are terraced in orientation, feeding into one another via waterfalls and ultimately extend into a big canyon at the bottom. The park contains many trails and boardwalks which allow you to walk through the series of lakes. Let me just say, get here as early as you possibly can before the bus crowds show up. It was shoulder to shoulder shuffling by 10 am. This wasn’t even peak season. It’s certainly worth it, but pack your “Patience Pants”. : ))

In short, Croatia rocks.