**** Sorry for the delayed post, internet speeds/serviceability in remote national parks is just not terribly conducive to posting/keeping a blog up ****
We started early today, as we had a lot of ground to cover to get to the Plitvice Lakes national park.
Our first stop was just 17 miles from Split in the historic town/harbour of Trogir. The old town of Trogir is situated on an island off the Adriatic coast.
There are two distinct buildings in historic Trogir (besides just the old town itself), the Cathedral and Kamerlengo Castle that protected the harbor.
Here are some pictures of Trogir:
Of course the docks weren’t all fancy ships… it had it’s share of working ships like this fishing boat:
And this trawler:
And of course the castle was at the end of the docks as well…
And weaving our way back through town, there were some really nice courtyards down some of the streets/alleys:
And of course some signs of the recent flooding:
We then hit the road (somewhat still along the coast), but generally trending inland, as we were leaving the Dalmation Coast and heading for the interior.
Much of the interior portions that we saw of Croatia were rocky and somewhat desolate, but strangely beautiful none-the-less. Here are roadway shots of what we saw:
With all of the rock and mountains to cross, there were quite a few tunnels through the mountains to allow traversing, which we got to drive through. Most were fairly short, but one was quite long.
As we finally arrived in the Plitvice Lakes area… we stopped to have a quick lunch at a national parks restaurant. (Everything in the national park, restaurants, hotel, etc.) have been nationalized and are run by the government.
After lunch we continued on to the lakes region of the park, hiking down to the lower lakes, to a point where a boat was boarded to cut quite a distance off of the hiking. There was intermittent light rain, and it was very very foggy. Here are some pics of the Plitvice Lakes national park:
And of course did we mention how foggy it was… This was greatly demonstrated on the boat ride. The fog was so thick that you couldn’t see anything. There was one of the boatmen in front, that Jay jokingly said to another tour member “I wonder if he is our GPS”…
It turns out, that yes… he was signaling the captain whether to steer right or left based on what he could see at the front of the boat. Here he is imitating his best Siri / GPS directions:
We stayed at a hotel in the park (which as we noted earlier was nationalized by the government). Our guide warned us that this hotel would be the worst of the trip… essentially being “functional” for sleeping at, but minimalist and austere otherwise. She said it is basically a remnant hotel from the Yugoslavia era.
Here are some pictures of what it looked like. (And yes, the three air vents shown, do go to a significant portion of it which is underground below the parking lot. Tim jokingly suggested that maybe that this was a resort for the polit-bureau, and maybe that area was originally intended for bomb shelters.)
Well, goodnight comrades. Until later.