8/8 Day 8 first half: Walked routes E and B on Plitvice Lakes National Park. Arrived at entrance 2. Walked to P1. Took boat from P1 to P2. Walked from P2 to Station 3. Took bus from Station 3 to Station 1. Walked from Station 1 to P1. Spent 5 hours.
Cost
(1) 2-days ticket to Plitvice Lakes National Park EUR60
(2) Parking fee Plitvice Lakes National Park EUR2 per hour - 5 hours for EUR10
Food
(1) Breakfast at Lady of the Lake B&B - Buffet EUR10
The Story
08082025: Today, we take a walk in Plitvice Lakes National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage. I bought the tickets the day before.
A month back, when I checked the time slots, I planned for 9am and I saw about 160 slots available so I thought that I could buy the ticket later. However, a day before our planned walk, there were no slots available. It was either 8am or during noon, which will be too hot for us. So, we took 8am. I read that one has 1 hour from time of ticket to enter the park. So, the latest time we can enter is 9am. A minute later and one has to buy a new time slot. For the second day, one can enter the park at any time.
Here, I need to describe a bit more of the pricing and illustrate how ridiculously expensive it is!
Not many tourists purchase 2-days ticket as it is costly. We shouldn't but I read somewhere that to see the most of the national park, it is recommended with 2 days. My experience says that 1 day is sufficient! The pricing varies depending on season and timing. During winter from November to March, a 2-day ticket costs EUR15! Our ticket is 4x the price. Ouch! Do you understand now why I said that Croatia's places of attraction milks tourists as much as they can? For March, April and October, the price is EUR39.
For a 1-day ticket, during summer from June to September, after 4pm, the price is EUR25. The park closes at 6pm. Before 4pm is EUR40. From November to March, the price is EUR10. March, April and October - EUR23.
Considering how hot Croatia is during summer, it is fine to come here before June, where the weather is manageable, and take the cheaper price ticket. On hindsight, 1-day ticket is good and take the longest route K to see the well-known waterfalls and most of the lakes. Take the earliest ticket in the morning, bring food for lunch, and you can see the most of the national park. You don't have to explore the whole of the park as after a while, all the angles and corners look similar as one is walking around the lake.
We started our day with breakfast. We paid for the breakfast buffet as we wanted to get to the national park in good time. We had a quick breakfast. Totally not worth the EUR10 we paid for.
We bought similar kind of breakfast (except for the egg) for the next 3 days from Tommy store and it costs us EUR4,63 per person per day. Yeah, just 46% of the price of the breakfast buffet.
We left at 8.25am and arrived at Plitvice Lakes National Park 5 minutes later. We chose Entrance 2 as it is the nearest to our accommodation. The parking space is a space under trees. There are no allocated spots. One can park anywhere as long as there is space and it does not block the driving lane. For EUR60, I expected a proper parking space...
From the parking space, it took us 10 minutes of quick walking to reach the entrance. I did not have the time to explore the market or information center.
I was so worried and hurried to get to the entrance as I did not know how far we have to walk before reaching. Phew, at 8.49am, we arrived at the entance and got our tickets scanned.
The park staff asked us which route we were going to take before letting us in. I did not realise that we needed to choose a route. We chose route E just so that we can get in before 9am. The staff explained to us briefly on how the route and the transport we can take. The park has a boat and a mini bus for some parts of the routes. When we asked if we could walk of the planned route, the staff discouraged us and told us to walk on the planned route. We realised that the staff probably did that so that it is easier for tourists to find their direction by sticking onto the route. Thankfully, my travel companions have excellent sense of direction and we changed our paths, by referring to the map, so that we could see the most of the park without following the planned route. No, we did not walk out of the trail.
I was impressed by how neat and well-maintained the route is. Clean and wide steps. Clear directions on signboards.
Our route is E, so we followed the arrow to P1 where we will take a small boat to the other side of the lake to start our walk.
P2 is the stop on the other side of the lake.
At P1, I got to see the famed Plivice Lake. Blue. Clear. Clean. I was in awe of the first sight of the lake.
The boat departs every 10 minutes. The distance to the other side of the lake is very short.
Reaching P2.
At the other side of the lake, it is a short flight of wooden stairs to the start of our trail. The wooden stairs were beautifully made. Sturdy and stable.
Here, I get to see a closer view of the blue, crystal-clear water. I could see fishes. There was no rail on the boardwalk so one has to be careful to not fall into the waters. This is not a two-way path and there is a no-entry sign for the other direction. I don't know how deep the lake is but it does not look shallow.
Based on the map, our end destination is Station 3 at the end of route E. Despite me seeing Station 3 at the beginning of our walk, it does not mean that Station 3 is anywhere nearby. It is just the direction that we are headed towards. I felt cheated. I see signs of toilet and coffee but I reached Station 3 about 2 hours later...
The depth of the lake is 10meters.
Caught our first sight of waterfalls - 28 meters in height.
It can be narrow on the boardwalk when one stops to take photos.
A sign that tells tourists to not throw coins into the water as it will pollute the sediment and tufa barriers. I don't understand the concept of people throwing coins into the water either.
The only wildlife I saw.
There are wooden benches available to sit and rest. Unfortunately, the view is mostly blocked by giant trees.
Two hours later, we reached the toilet located at Station 3. Here, we boarded the bus to get to Station 1.
While waiting for the bus, we saw a sign that shows a hiking trail - Planinarska Staza, which is not an easy trail and so we decided to do the trail tomorrow. At least, my travel companions planned that and I did not realise it was this trail...
A bigger map of the national park and one can see the stations and posts.
At Station 1, we walked a bit of route B back to P1. This is what I meant by not following for the planned route. We still walk on the trail but not the entire route.
I saw a map of Croatia and I put my fingers to show where we had been - Dubrovnik was the first stop, followed by Makarska the second stop. Now, Plitvice, the third stop and our final stop is Zagreb. It is quite a distance between the second and the third stop.
I like the view of the reed plants along the boarded walk and I requested a photo.
It was a short distance and we were back at P1 about 50 minutes later, which includes some photo stops. That is the boat we took this morning that got us from P1 to P2.
One can rent a boat to row around the lake. Quite expensive at EUR15 per hour. I saw some tourists rowing on the lake. I am not interested at all.
Back at P1, we found a shaded spot to have a quick lunch - banana and bun. We decided to call it a day and look for a spot to take a dip. Here is the view from our shaded spot. My travel companions wanted to sit by the waters and I did not want to. It was TOO HOT!
After lunch, it was a 10 minute walk back to the parking lot. The longest 10-minute ever under the heat... They could have provided a bus to the parking lot. We paid EUR60. I am pretty sure they could afford a bus. There are restaurants in the national park too but I think it is expensive, so I was not keen to drop in. But I was wrong. I just did a quick search for the menu in Restaurant Poljana, the first restaurant on the signboard, and the food and beverage price is almost the same as the prices in the restaurant we visited in Plitvice.
We were in the car when I realised we had a few more minutes to leave the park so that we do not exceed 5 hours. We parked by the roadside and I ran to the parking office to get our parking ticket stamped. We were in the national park for exactly 5 hours, as printed on the parking ticket. Phew! A minute more and we would have to pay EUR2 extra.
My travel companions found a bathing spot in River Korana at Slunj, so we headed there. To be continued in the next post!
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