Twelve Days of Croatia: Days 1-4

We arrived in Zagreb in the late afternoon, but after meeting our guides Robi and Filip and the rest of our 12-person group, we were able to go out and have dinner and see a bit of the city near our hotel. The next morning we headed south, making a couple of stops along the way, including a museum-to-be from the 1990's war. It was particularly interesting to see the farm tractors that the Croatians had hastily converted into armored vehicles. We also stopped at this gorgeous little community of Slunj situated on and among the meeting of two rivers and filled with waterfalls and watermills. Our ultimate destination was the astounding Plitvice Lakes National Park, home to a series of sixteen lakes connected by cascading falls and travertine pools. After hiking all day, we transferred to the nearby village of Korana for our lodging for the next two nights.

On the following day, we set out on bikes from Korana village and made our way through the rolling countryside, with a stop and visit to Barac's Caves. Back at our village homestay, Darlene and I enjoyed a "refreshing" swim in the creek that runs through the village.

The fourth day took us further south, with a brief stop near Krupa at Croatia's oldest orthodox monastery (1317), under the very watchful eye of the last remaining monk's mother. From there, we continued on to lunch and then put in for an awesome day of kayaking on the Zrmanja and Krupa rivers. Late that afternoon we arrived for a lovely welcome overlooking our overnight destination of Novigrad.