Plitvice and Split

Travelling from Napoli to Plitvice was a long-ish process. Train to Rome, train to Ancona (unexpected bus from Ancona ferry terminal to the place where you collect the tickets and then back again), through passport control, across the Adriatic via ferry (overnight, in the hold of the ship; we slept well enough). By then it was morning, and we'd arrived in Split, only to sit in the bus station waiting for a bus to Plitvice. Breakfast had been included on the ship, so we filled up on bread, cereal and coffee. Yum.

Plitvice Jezera is a National Park in Croatia. It's got waterfalls and lakes, and slightly more expensive accommodation. I suggested that we skip it. We're nearing the end of our time in Europe, and we're finding that travelling in this part of the world isn't as straightforward as it was in Spain or Italy. The railways aren't really in use, and it's hard to find information about buses on the internet. Plitvice was – as far as I could tell – too difficult to get to, given that we'd have to travel for a half day each way to get there.

We hopped onto the bus, and paid our 20 kuna for luggage (luggage is extra in this country – 20 kuna is about NZ$4).

Driving through the countryside I thought, rather profoundly: I like this country. Having come from Italy, where everything is covered in graffiti, it's a nice change to have graffiti the exception rather than the rule. There are little clusters of abandoned stone buildings scattered over the scrub-stippled hills, the infrastructure is in need of improvement, and we're beginning to see signs in the exotic Cyrillic script. Andalusia felt exotic in a Mexico-meets-arabian-nights kind of way. Croatia is exotic in a different kind of way, like a post-apocalyptic backwater, where things are falling apart, but everyone is getting on with their own business. It's also surprisingly touristy, but in a chilled out kind of way; even the people meeting you and asking if you need accommodation for the night as soon as you step off the bus just shrugged when we told them we already had a place to stay.

We ascended into the mountains and a problem became apparent. It began to rain, and then we entered a bank of fog and never left. This is a problem when you're planning on seeing things more than 20m away. We had been hoping to do a bit of that.

Anyway, we arrived in Plitvice, checked into our really rather flash hotel, and suited up to go outside again.

Did I mention that it was cold?

It was cold.

We walked out to get tickets (which we never actually seemed to need) for entry into the park and saw that the lower lakes were closed due to flooding. Perhaps this is why our tickets were half price.

The lakes area is set up quite well for walking tours. There are boats that normally take you across the lake to other trails:

Here's what the boat area looked like:

They had these bus/train things that can take you overland if you're not into walking 3-5km before starting your 3-5km walk. The problem was that the signs in the park didn't say which of the lakes were the lower ones. We made a few educated guesses, and took one of the bus/train things to where we might be able to do a walk from.

We wandered along the boardwalk at the beginning of our walk and managed to squeeze past a group of package-tour tourists, and off into the mist and drizzle.

Some sights:

Waterfalls

More waterfalls

The path was flooded, but like life, we uh, found another way. (Yes it's a butchered quote from Jurassic Park.)

That's a fire salamander enjoying the drizzle. At least someone got some kicks out of it.

There was a bunch of fish valiantly trying to jump upriver, but you probably can't see them in this picture.

The next day we had another complimentary breakfast (too much scrambled eggs and bacon and sausages and weird quasi-yoghurt and toast and cereal for me), stashed our bags, and went to see if we could see anything else.

The day was much clearer!

That's a walkway that was closed down there - but of course there were people down there still. Scofflaws gonna scoff.

It was still rather cold.

We managed to do a proper wander round before hopping on a boat (that was actually running today!) that we hoped would take us to one location, but which ended up taking us back to the beginning near our hotel. Lame.

View from the boat. We got on last, so were right in the middle of a sea of brightly coloured people.

We waited in the cold for our bus to Split, and the weather began to clear enough for a couple of patches of blue sky. At least we got some fine weather in Plitvice, even if right at the end. I'm glad we went, even though the weather didn't work out very well for us.

The bus back to Split was uneventful. Our booking.com host picked us up at the bus station (this was unexpected) and told us we looked tired (this was also unexpected).

There are a few things to do in Split – and a few to do in the surrounding regions. We had one day, so confined ourselves to Split.

Diocletian (whom you may remember as a persecutor of Christians, or perhaps as the first Roman emperor to retire) grew up along the Dalmatian coast, so it's understandable that he'd retire here also. It's also understandable when you see the view. The story goes that he retired to grow vegetables, but having seen his palace, I think it's more likely that he retired to supervise others growing veggies. The palace is/was so big that after he was long gone the town/city of Split grew up inside its walls.

Part of a church

Entrance into the palace.

Not sure what this is, perhaps the other side of the church.

Gate.

We got to see the underground levels of Diocletian's palace though, since it's being excavated. It's not really worth the price of the ticket to get in to see it, especially not when you can see parts of it for free.

Under the palace.

After this we took a walk up the peninsula. There's a hill overlooking the town.

Part of the town. It's quite a cruise ship destination.

Islands off in the distance.

There were a few old stone churches scattered along the peninsula, including this one.

Later that day we popped into the archaeological museum. It's pretty small, but we saw some interesting stuff.

Mosaic. (As an aside, I've always felt it's strange that pictures made from small tiles are called mosaics, but things related to Moses are also called mosaic.)

As a whole, Split is alright. It's kind of like some parts of Auckland with its waterfront area, and kind of like Spain, with the arid landscape surrounding an old town area. If we had more time we might have taken a boat trip to one of the islands, but we didn't, so we didn't.

The next day we headed off to Dubrovnik.