Croatia: Plitvice Lakes National Park and Pula

Our time in Croatia...

We spent 5 wonderful, relaxing days in Croatia.  When Rachel and I met in Vienna in the early 1990s, this country was fighting for independence from what was formerly Yugoslavia.  While they declared independence they didn't really become independent until a major military offensive against Serbian militants in 1995.  18 years later, I think this is one of the jewels of Europe.  I don't think we met a grumpy Croatian, and while I wouldn't say the costs are super inexpensive I am now writing this note from Italy where I FEEL like the costs in Croatia were super inexpensive.  It's incredibly expensive here in Italy!

We arrived in Croatia June 19 and rested for a full day after the long drive from Vienna.  The kids caught up on some home school work.  To be as productive as possible V sat on AJ....

AJ loved where we stayed, a little house up in the mountains near Plitvice Lakes National Park.  It  is one of the few places we have stayed on this trip that had a swing set on the property...

The girls found something online showing how to take a man's shirt and turn it into a little dress....so now I have no shirts....

Driving to our place we crossed this bridge and saw a bunch of people swimming below.  So, near the end of our first full day (June 20) in Croatia we headed back to this area to have some fun.  It was an unseasonably 95 degrees F on this day...

We found the place and it was so incredible that S ACTUALLY STARTED WALKING ON THE WATER!!!!

....either that or Rachel had really good timing in taking the above shot when S was jumping off this high jump tower next to the river (see below).  Something tells me you would never see something like this in the USA as the lawyers would have a field day suing the city because some dummy decided to ride his bike off the tower and ended up breaking his neck...

AJ got into the action as well (not off the tower but in the water) while Rachel and the other girls laid in the sun and dipped their toes in the remarkably pleasant water.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

The next day, June 21, we headed to one of the most beautiful places in the world.  There is no possible way words can explain this place, but it is like a waterfall wonderland with literally hundreds of water falls from 70 meters high to just a few meters high.  We spent about 6 hours in the park touring all the lower lakes region and some of the upper lakes region.

Here is a side view of this area of the world and why there are so many water falls here:

As you walked along the path, each lake would have a sign like this pointing to the lake you were next to and giving some data about it.  This particular lake is a 18 meters deep at its deepest and is one of the 'lower' lakes.  If you can imagine the large lake in the upper left corner flowing into the small lake just beside it, and then that lake empties into the one to its right and so on and so on.  But its not just 1 waterfall from each lake to the next lake.  There are literally hundreds of waterfalls of all different shapes and sizes.

We started at the very bottom lake on the far right hand side of the chart above and worked our way up.  This is the view from the top of Entrance 1 into the park.  The last lake is to the left; the huge water fall to the right is actually from a river that is completely separate from the lake portion but just happens to end here.  It really is quite magnificent...

A fun little side note...we met this couple (Ann Marie and Ante Jazic) and learned that he is a professional soccer player who played with David Beckham on the LA Galaxy.  To all you Becks fans out there, he said the guy is first rate and one of the nicest people he has ever met.  

Anyway, they took this family picture at the top above the falls before we headed down.

As we hiked down the path toward the bottom of the big fall, we came upon the 'last' lake.  The water was SO clear....REALLY clear and the color of each lake was a little different.  Some were greenish.  Others were very blue.  But all of them were clear, clear, clear.

Notice the sunken boat (this picture is on the path toward the big water fall...)

Another example of the super clear water taken later in the day at a different lake.  Notice the different color as well and the drop off into the water.....this must have gone 10 meters straight down and we could see all the way to the bottom.

To get around the park, Croatia has created these raised wooden pathways and often times the path goes directly over various water falls.  They also make for some wonderful pictures as the day progressed...

I have been thinking about how to write about this day but I think the best way to describe it is to just let the pictures do most of the talking.  I felt God's presence and creativity all through the day.  It was a wonderful day....

Notice the rainbow at the bottom left of the large falls...

AJ did this kind of thing quite a bit during the day.  Surprisingly, he did not fall in...

We ate lunch at a place that marked the end of the 'lower lakes' region and then took a ferry across the large large to explore some of the 'upper' lakes after lunch...

The baby bump is growing!!!

There were these magnificent blue dragonflies throughout the park.  This picture really doesn't do them justice as they were really quite handsome...

Twins!

Sisters!

The kids...by this point it was late in the day and they were getting a bit waterfalled out, so we headed for the exit...

But still saw some pretty magnificent things as we headed out....

Look at that nice view!....oh, and the waterfall is nice too.

One of many pathways built directly over a waterfall...

The place we had rented let us keep our bags at the apartment, so we headed back there to pick up our things.  We headed out at 3pm for what we thought would be about a 3+ hour car ride to Pula, Croatia on the Adriatic Sea (west coast of Croatia).

Well, you know how GPS devices can give you several routes to choose from?  I chose a route that seemed a bit more direct rather than traveling far north (and primarily on highways).  I didn't quite realize that the route I chose wasn't so much a road as a 'hang on by the seat of your pants as the road it about 1 car wide traveling mostly through treacherous mountain terrain with no guard rails and a good portion of it was dirt road'  Somehow it didn't say that on the GPS, but that is what we found!

Oh, and while we were in the middle of no where, the GPS died and so being the man that I am, I refused to ask for directions stating "If we just keep heading west eventually we will hit the coast and we can figure it out from there."

Well, the road chosen coming out of the mountains started heading south, so I relented and said as soon as I found a gas station I would stop in and get directions.  We came upon a grocery store first and since it was already 7pm and we were nowhere near Pula (remember we left at 3 and this was supposed to be a 3+ hour trip....it actually WAS 3+ hours because 7 1/2 hours is indeed 3PLUS hours). Anyway, we got food at the grocery store for dinner, found a gas station, got directions (and a map of all of Europe by the way just in case this happens again), and arrived safe and sound in Pula at 1030pm.

Pula, Croatia

Given our long day on June 21, we basically kicked back and rested in June 22.  The place we had in Pula was one of the best we have stayed in as it had 3 bedrooms a large living room and a full kitchen, all for a very reasonable price.

June 23 we headed out to explore Pula.  It has the 6th largest Roman Amphitheater remaining in the world today and the best preserved.  We spent about 2 hours in this structure with a little audio tour that we rented.  The place was quite spectacular!

I literally got chills walking up this pathway below.  This walkway was the path gladiators used as they entered into the arena.  It is also the pathway the early Christians would walk, without weapons, into the arena....and the pathway the lions would then use to enter into the arena to eat those Christians....all for the entertainment of the Roman mob.  Pretty sickening, chilling stuff.  As stated above, I literally got a chill down my spine walking down this path into the arena...

There was a fascinating description on the audio tour as to the value of gladiators back in Roman times.  Gladiators were mostly captured soldiers from different parts of the empire but also criminals could be trained as gladiators if they showed fighting promise.  A first class gladiator was worth 5,000 (Roman money...don't remember the name of the money) with the best of the best being worth 15,000.

To put that in perspective a regular Roman soldier was paid 900 a year.  A centurion commander (rank similar to General in current armies) made 15,000 a year and the elite Pretorium Guard soldiers made 3,000 a year.  This shows the value Rome put on great gladiators as they were valued at more than 5x what the most elite soldiers made in a year.  The great gladiators could eventually win their freedom and a lot of money as well....but every fight was to the death (unless the Caesar chose to spare one of the fighters).  Since every fight was to the death, one bad day would be a gladiator's last day.

They have mock gladiator fights here in the arena about 5 times a summer (not to the death as in Roman times but just for fun).  These two gladiators were entrepreneurs charging about $4 a shot for pictures).  I got this freebie as they walked into the arena...

Gladiator AJ....

Gladiator AJ and S in a fight to the finish...

...and once finished it was play time of course.  These little cars are being played with in all kinds of interesting places...

V being goofy when our audio tour said this pedestal used to hold a statue of some Goddess the gladiators and warriors felt brought them good luck...

Family pic at the arena...

We learned that the seats went all the way to the top of the arena and people were seated by class.  The higher level classes sat on the lower level, protected by a 3 meter wall with metal poles at the top so the lions wouldn't eat the spectators.  The best seats were a platform for the royalty and highest levels of society and then the common people would be higher up in the stadium.

Purple = the color of royalty

Apparently the Romans were the forerunners of the concept of a seat license or season tickets as people would sit in the same seat year after year....so much so that they would carve their name into the stone identifying their seat.

View toward the west...the sea is just beyond that wall.  The arena was built in the first century AD basically during the time Jesus lived in Israel.

One of the reasons this structure stayed standing is the building somehow got metal hooks between each stone.  So, they are not just sitting one stone atop of another, nor are they held together with morter.  They are literally hooked together.  This made it difficult for later generations who wanted to steal the stone for other projects to take the arena apart (though that did happen to the stone seats and anything else that was easy to cart away).

You can see in the picture above that they still do events at the arena (see stage).  A few days after this there was a 'strings' concert.  They also have the gladiator fights as mentioned above and other festivals.

The seats were built in the 1930s.  Before that the open area was filled with grass and weeds....so much so that farm animals would graze in the center of the arena!

Back in Roman times there was a gigantic room underneath the center area which housed equipment, some of the animals, preparation area for gladiators, rooms for prisoners etc.  In Roman times a series of pillars supporting wood beams and a wood floor existed with sand being poured over the top to create the floor of the arena.  In the 1930s, that room was filled in with dirt to allow for safe productions

After touring the Pula Amphitheater, we went to check out a few other interesting things in Pula...and found a park for AJ.  The Amphitheater is actually in the background of this picture (hard to see)

Anchors away!

Triumph arch from Roman times...

Now serves as the gateway into the commercial area of the city....

On the far end of this commercial district was a fully intact temple to some Goddess of Roman times.  I don't know what it is about Pula having fully intact ancient ruins, but it does!  There really wasn't much to see in the temple as they try to charge you a couple of dollars to go into the temple.  We stuck our head in and saw that there really wasn't much there, so we just got a couple of shots of the exterior and headed back to the car.

The photobomber strikes again!

Description of Temple and what it looked like back in the day.  What is left is just a small piece of the original temple...

Later in the afternoon we headed to the beach...

AND HAD SO MUCH FUN ON THIS APPARATUS

There is an absolutely hilarious series of pictures Rachel got of S, H, V, and me going out to have fun on this water apparatus.  V could not make it to the top of area you see below.  The triumphant picture below is only after a comical series of falls, slips, flips into the water....H zipping quickly to the top while V falls.  S going to the top while V hangs upside down.  Daddy going to the top while V flips into the water.  Rachel was crying as she took all these pictures because it was just so funny.

I have to hand it to V though.  She just kept laughing at herself and she never gave up.  She finally made it to the top and that is the VICTORY picture that makes the blog....

We headed out of Croatia on June 24.  I asked the girls what some of their favorite memories were so far on the trip and they said the time on this water apparatus was definitely one of their favorites.  We were cracking up so much as all of us wiped out, slipped, fell in etc.  If you look to the left of V in the picture above you see a platform for jumping.  Well, I jumped near the edge like you would do on a diving board....and of course this isn't a diving board, it is just a bunch of air....so I had quite an awkward jump / slip / fall into the water.  But thankfully, Rachel was off playing with AJ by then so no documentation of that graceful water entry exists!

Regardless, we have very fond memories of Croatia and now will be making our way through Italy for about 10 days.

Til next time, God Bless!