Croatia: So Green, So Very Green

We’re in Croatia now! We had a brief stop in Toulouse, France (staying in the seedy part of town) before hopping on a plane to Zagreb. The food is agreeing well with us here, lots of cheese for Pedr and lots of cheap truffles and sour cherry liqueur for me!

We didn’t get to do a whole lot of sightseeing in Zagreb as we ended up staying there at the same time the Turkish President was in town so they closed off the old town one day, and then emptied out the cathedral when we were there the next day so he could visit. We did manage to see a bit of the old town before it was fully closed off. The cops seemed OK with letting a few (dumb) tourists in to take photos of St Mark’s Church in the centre of the old town, but we did notice that all the Croatians were turned away.

After Zagreb we took a trip out to Plitvice Lakes which is a national park area filled with terraced lakes and waterfalls. Instead of there being one big waterfall there’s heaps of tiny little ones with silky smooth lakes in between.

Since we were there right in the middle of spring all the trees have sprouted fresh new bright green leaves. And the lakes are a bright blue colour too thanks to the limestone, so everything seems so unnaturally bright and colourful. And since it’s mid-spring all the lakes and waterfalls are full of water, there’s water everywhere, running down in between trees and bushes and tufts of grass and moss.

I’m not sure if this is just because we’re Australian, so we’re not used to seeing so much green and water (and at the same time!), but the place just feels like some kind of fantasy-land rather than a real place.

The trip to the lakes wasn’t all smooth sailing. The forecast was for light rain so Pedr thought he’d be OK in a T-shirt and rain jacket. Wrong. We had snow the night before so when we arrived there was still snow on the ground and all over the tops of the buildings. So Pedr was a more than a little cold when we got there. He normally keeps his beanie and neck-warmer in his jacket pocket except I’d stolen his neck-warmer the night before to cover the bright light on my phone charger. So all he had was his beanie and a rain jacket to protect him from the cold. It didn’t go above 5°C all day, and the sky stayed overcast the whole time. I gave Pedr my gloves but his hands were so frozen that he couldn’t even move his fingers to put them on so I had to do it for him.

In the end we had a good time at the lakes, it’s well worth the trip for anyone going to Croatia. We’re also surprised at how green the countryside is in Croatia as well. We spent 5 hours on the bus between Zagreb and Split and rarely saw any towns or villages, just green forests, green plains and green & craggy mountains. Green as far as you can see. We’re looking forward to seeing more of the green countryside, and the blue of the sea, in the next few weeks.