Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

I spent a day and a half in Zagreb at the beginning of my trip using it as a bit of a stopover on my way to Serbia. However, that meant I was able to book a full-day tour to the Plitvice Lakes and boy did they not disappoint.

I booked the tour through GetYourGuide, which I find is the easiest way to book tours as I travel. It has a variety of tours in one place, allows your to search for specific activities or complete a general search of tours in the city you are visiting. Out of all of the GetYourGuide tours I have completed, this one was probably the most enjoyable in terms of socialising. It had a great mix of age groups, which meant as a solo traveller I was able to make friends during it.

A link to the tour is below

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Be prepared for quite a long day with the bus picking you up in Zagreb at 8 AM and then roughly returning to Zagreb at 6 PM. We had an amazing tour guide - Marko - and if you read the reviews everyone agrees so you know we didn’t just catch him on a good day (haha).

Your first stop is to Rastoke! On the way to Rastoke, Marko provides you with information on Zagreb’s history and cracks a few jokes to keep it entertaining. Rastoke is known as the “small lakes of Plitvice” and you will understand why once you see it. It was built in the 17th century where Slunjčica river runs into the Korana river and basically is homes built on top of the small lakes that run through it.

Also when I say small town I mean it, in a 2021 census, only 21 residents were recorded!!! How’s that for a tiny town. Originally the inhabitants built watermills and harvested wheat, however if you visit today you won’t be able to witness this as it is run as a preserved historic village with some families turning millstones for various grains.

You will have time to wander around the town and take some snaps of the lakes but it is quite a small town so I found I was able to do this quite quickly (even going slow). If you are wanting food, a coffee or a quick supermarket stop you have three restaurants in Rastoke itself, otherwise you can quickly walk up the hill to Slunj which has a supermarket and other shops. I chose to quickly walk up to Slunj for some water and a snack which as I mentioned still left me plenty of time to get back to Rastoke and see the lakes. Word of warning - I am on the quicker side of walking so if you are a slower walker than you may not have time to get up to Slunj and back.

After Rastoke, you make your way to Plitvice National Park (Plitvička Jezera), which is the highlight of the trip. The journey you take through the lakes is about 20 Km, however, you will be walking around 8 km, catching a “train” car thing and a boat ride for the other 12 km.

Once you arrive at the lakes, you jump onboard a “train”. I don’t know why they call it a train ride because it’s not a traditional train but rather a car that is designed to look like a train. This takes you from the entry gate up to the top of the lakes to start the walk down. The smaller lakes are at the top, so you start here and the path is very clear. Marko stopped along the way at waterfalls and took photos for everyone which was lovely.

You will then reach the larger lakes in which you get a ferry to your lunch spot at Kozjačka Draga. They do advise to bring your own food if you wouldn’t want to eat at the restaurant which is what most of us did. There’s also a small souvenir shop located here with the classical postcards, magnets etc.

After your lunch stop you continue walking but the views aren’t finished just yet as you make your way to Veliki Slap (waterfall). Make sure you go around the corner at this point because we thought the first waterfall was it until we turned around and were amazed by the second waterfall. You don’t need to do too much more walking after this but it is uphill to get back to where the bus picks you up again.