Jen and Rebecca See a Waterfall, then Another Waterfall (But No Wild Boars)

Our hotel near Plitvice Lakes National Park is in a pretty remote location, so now that we're back from our hike for the day, we're forced to break into one of the bottles of wine we bought on Peljesac Peninsula for entertainment--though we stopped at about 5 road-side markets looking for a corkscrew and after failing to find one, ended up politely asking the fine folks at the neighboring restaurant to open it for us for the small fee of a sip.  We have not yet learned our lesson from the Johnsons, to travel with our own bar set!  We have also turned on Croatian television for the first time this trip to see what it's like, and it turns out it's very religious.  We can find religious-themed shows in several languages, including English, but nothing much seems entertaining.  Where's the USA network with its mindless crime shows when you need it?

We did find Iranian Bob Ross on Iran TV! We may find this funnier because we've drunk a bottle of wine. (Bob Ross ended, so we've found an old Bob Hope-Bing Crosby On the Road movie in English to watch.)

But back to our day outside of the hotel room...  We outfitted ourselves in sporty-girl attire (little did we know hiking in Plitvice in pointy ballet flats or wedge heels is perfectly acceptable), were served more food than we could possibly eat for breakfast to fuel our day (included with our room, hooray!), and then we spent the entire day hiking in Plitvice.  But maybe "hiking" is too extreme.  Given the crowds, and relatively low-impact paths, it was really more of a walk, or at times, a stroll.  But that didn't make the views any less pretty or breathtaking.  It was fairly relaxing meandering through Croatia's first national park (declared as such in the 1950s).  Our only disappointment was that the guidebooks told us there were wild boars in the park.  But the only wildlife we saw was ducks and trout.  Harkening back to our Galapagos trip, Jen had much fun taking oodles of fish and bird pictures.

Big fish, little fish.

The lakes were all very blue, and clear, and there were plenty of happy little trees.  And there were so many waterfalls that though certain parts of the trail had too many people, we could pretty much always hear a waterfall.  It was peaceful and beautiful, and a great way to spend the entire day!

Blue, reflective water.

Rebecca with a waterfall.

Jen with another waterfall.

Shaun with yet another waterfall (in his ducky tie, worn today in honor of the many ducks in Plitvice.)

Yup, this is a different waterfall.

Have you gotten the point yet that there are a lot of waterfalls in this park?

Can't stop uploading awesome waterfall pictures!

We took many, many photos of all the great scenery, making it hard to choose the best ones here.  (Jen hopes to have a new wall photo and screen saver photo from this batch of photos and we think she has an excellent chance of finding the perfect ones.) But lest you think all we saw were lakes and waterfalls in Plitvice, we also saw caves!

Rebecca in a cave.

Jen in a cave.

After close to 8 hours in the park, including a few ferry rides, refreshment breaks, and a tram ride most of the way back to the car park, in addition to all of the stopping for photo ops, we left the park in our search in vain for a corkscrew, but we were successful at finding dinner at a restaurant other than the one attached to our hotel.  Spaghetti for us, followed by ice cream, per the norm for our trip (Rebecca's truck-stop ice cream from the previous day left a little to be desired, however.)  Now that we've exhausted ourselves with all that hiking, a bottle of wine, and the sad Croatian television options, we should hit the hay for tomorrow's adventures.

Wine opening victory!