Day 14 – April 29 Friday

A leisurely start with breakfast at 7am & off by 8am on a walking tour of Plitvice National Park lakes & waterfalls.  The morning was cool, foggy with drizzly rain & around 11C.  The lakes & waterfalls are absolutely stunning, not what I had expected, there are waterfalls everywhere, the water in the lakes is crystal clear with fish swimming everywhere & from a distance the water is an incredible shade of blue.  Everywhere you looked it was stunning, for about an hour & a half we walked up & down on a rustic board walk & just admired it.  A boat was waiting for us & ferried us across where we had a fifteen minute pit stop & continued to walk down to the lower lake with more magnificent waterfalls, especially the one on the end awaited us – wonderful.  We all climbed back to the bus.  The descent was deep so we had a steep climb up but the walkways were done very well, it wasn’t a hard walk.

Next its off to the coast.  The terrain has really changed, no more lush green but replaced by poor unfertile rocky scrubby land.  There were huge mountains in the distance & very poor looking houses & even a lot of abandoned houses – we couldn’t see what they could live from.  We had a short lunch stop at a road house & off we were to Trogir.  Our spirits were lifted when the sun came out & a beautiful town on the Adriatic Sea started to appear.  Trogir is on a beautiful little island connected to the mainland by some bridges.  There were many lovely boats anchored in the bay & lots of street cafes, small shops in narrow streets.  We walked around enjoying the sun, sea, the old churches, towers & other buildings built by the Venetians between the 11^th & 14^th century, you cannot help to realise that the things we call antiques in Australia are nothing but “old”.

A short drive to Split & we booked into a very nice (almost new hotel) the 5 star Atrium.   We were taken a few kilometres out of town to a nice big restaurant, where we were greeted by pre-dinner schnapps, cold meats or a very tasty seafood, soup, trout, vegetables & potatoes or a veal dish & fresh salad, for dessert – crepes, a sort of cream broule (a Croatian speciality) & another – some kind of very nice cake & red/white wine or soft drinks.  The food was once again exceptional, the 3 musicians played & sang Croatian and other music – we all sang, clapped & even danced. What a fantastic evening.

We were very reluctant about going on a tour but the group of people travelling with us are great.  The hotels so far are tops & the food is varied, lots of fresh fruit, very tasty (the problem – it’s too good).  Our bus driver is very skilled, Brad our tour leader is very professional, knows the history & starts us off earlier to get us into places before the crowd.  We appreciate it, everyone is punctual & don’t mind early starts – we didn’t come all this way to sleep.