Plitvice Lakes National Park Part 1

Today we visited Plitvice Lakes National Park.  We began the day by fueling up and I thought you might think it was fun to see the van that we are driving in.  This is our vacation van. 

We are ready now and on our way.  These are a few pictures of the country side.  This is still the highland country.

This is Ravana Gora which means Flat Top Mountain.  These pictures were taken in the Ravana Gora district.

We stopped at the White Rose and had a drink and some ice cream.  The people in the village were busy chopping and stacking wood for the winter.  You can see how high they stacked the wood. 

We are now entering the Lika Valley.  This is considered a very remote area of Croatia.  The people are very isolated.  This area had Croatian and the Serbs living here.  When Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, the Serbs bombed anyone around them that were Croatian.  The Serbs did not want to be separated from Yugoslavia.  The Serbs had a big army and the Croatians did not.  You will see a bombed out house in these photos. 

We stopped and had lunch at a Bistro.  These pictures were taken in the Rakovac Valley.

 This is the smoke house where they cooked the meat.  Dad had lamb, the rest of us had chicken.  The food was delicious!

We are at Plitvice Lakes National Park.  The park consists of 16 lakes and it is known for its water falls.  We took a boat across one of the lakes and it took us to a foot trail that we used to hike down into the park.  It is quite a walk down the trail and even longer coming up the trail.  The water is very blue because of the calcium that dissolves from the water running over the rocks.  It is absolutely beautiful.