Zagreb - Plitvice Lakes - Dubrovnik

We flew from London Gatwick airport to Zagreb with Monarch Airlines, arriving in Zagreb at 4.20pm on Friday 12/05/17. Zagreb airport was eerily quiet and after easily clearing immigration we grabbed our bag and jumped straight onto the shuttle bus which took us from the airport to the Zagreb central bus station. From there we had a 10 minute walk to our Airbnb apartment just on the outskirts of the CBD.
The apartment was fantastic and very comfortable plus it was nice to have good Wifi for a change!
After settling in we walked into the city centre and had dinner at Plac Kitchen & Grill. We sat outdoors on the terrace and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Matt had a chilli burger and I had cevapcici, a traditional Croatian dish of kofta-like sausages with flatbread and sides of kajmak (butter cream) and avjar (a dip of roasted red peppers) and heaps of onion.
Our meals and a couple of pints of Croatian beer only cost us 130 kuna or 16 pound so we were quite happy.
After dinner we felt exhausted from our day of traveling so

we went home and got a good nights sleep.

(Photos: the apartment; buildings along our street Ulica Kralja Držislava; elevator in the apartment building).

Saturday morning was gloriously warm and sunny and we had a leisurely breakfast at the apartment before heading out to explore the city.
We began by strolling through the 'Green Horseshoe' which is essentially a number of different public parks and green spaces which all join up to form a U shape just on the edge of the city. We particularly enjoyed the impressive central train station building; and opposite the train station Tomislav Square. The square features a statue dedicated to King Tomislav, who was crowned the first King of Croatia in 925AD after courageously defending Croatia from Hungarian attacks and uniting all the Croatian lands into one country.

(Photos: Zagreb city 'the Green Horshoe'; King Tomislav Square; central station).

We also enjoyed the Zagreb Botanical Gardens which were in full bloom being Spring. Most of all we enjoyed the sheer lack of people in the city compared to London!
We wandered into the city centre and had a beer at a local restaurant and did some people watching at the Dolac Market (a massive farmers market which is open every day of the week). We bought a few groceries and some figs and honey then had a late lunch at La Struk restaurant, which specialises in 'strukli' - a traditional Croatian pastry dish made with a base of cottage cheese and combined with other sweet or savoury fillings. We tried the pumpkin seed pesto and walnut and honey strukli and were not disappointed.

After lunch we continued our walking tour of the city and saw the famous Zagreb Cathedral before making our way home to rest our feet.
We had dinner and a movie at the apartment and had a relatively early night in order to get up early Sunday morning and collect our hire car.

(Photos: Zagreb Botanical Gardens; city centre; Dolac Market; strukli lunch; Zagreb Cathedral).

We took the shuttle bus back to the airport at 8.30am on Sunday and after collecting our car and getting briefly lost getting out of the airport we hit the motorway by 10am. Our 2 hour drive to the town of Slunj (where we had booked another Airbnb apartment to be our base to see the Plitvice Lakes National Park) was filled with beautiful green scenery and sunshine. We checked in to our apartment just after lunchtime and spent some time chatting with our host Zlatko who not only provided us with great information and tips for exploring the local area, but also shared with us stories about his family and their experience during the Croatian War of Independence in the 90s.
He also welcomed us with a complimentary bottle of homemade rakija made from plums from his family's plum orchid a few kilometres down the road.

(Photos: the apartment; rakjia).

We spent Sunday afternoon exploring the magical little village of Rastoke, which was a 10 minute walk from our apartment. Rastoke is the historical centre of the town of Slunj and is often called 'Little Plitvice' because of the similar phenomenon of terraced lakes and waterfalls (although on a much smaller scale). Rastoke is unique however in that for the past couple of centuries people have lived and worked in Rastoke (where people do not live in Plitvice) building their homes in amongst the terraced lakes and waterfalls and making use of the natural resources to operate watermills. At it's peak Rastoke had 22 watermills however the advent of machinery and the impact of the war hit hard on the local area and now only 3 watermills still operate in the village. It is still a fairly 'off the beaten track' location so it's charm has not yet been spoiled by mass tourism.
We had a perfect afternoon exploring the village, the waterfalls and the crystal clear blue River Slunj in the sunshine.

We had an early dinner of pizza and lasagne at a local restaurant Konoba Kum (which was cheap and super delicious) then made our way back to the apartment, where we drank beers on the outdoor patio before turning in for the night.
(Photos: Rastoke village - last pic is a professional photo).

All the warm weather on Sunday culminated in a thunder storm on Sunday night and then brought about a very cool change on Monday morning. We made an early start to try and beat the crowds to Plitvice Lakes National Park but we did not anticipate how cold it would be!
It was certainly worthwhile arriving early however as we entered the park at 9.30am and there were barely any other people there until after lunchtime. By the time we left at 3.30pm however there were large groups of tourists and school children making their way around the park so it was a good time to make our exit.

The Plitvice Lakes National Park is the largest national park in Croatia at almost 300 square kilometres, of which the actual lakes collectively make up around 2 square kilometres. The area was designated a national park in 1949 so it is also one of the oldest national parks in Europe.
The park is famous for the naturally occurring phenomenon of terraced lakes. There are 16 lakes in total which cascade into one another descending from an altitude of 636 to 503 m over a distance of about 8km. The lakes are separated by natural dams of travertine, a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs. The travertine barriers are the result of interaction between the water, air and plants, and encrusted plants and bacteria accumulate on top of each other, forming travertine barriers which grow at the rate of about 1 cm per year.

For our visit we began at Entrance 1 and did a full circuit around the park. We started by taking the shuttle bus right up to the uppermost lake and then trekking our way down along the forest paths and the lake boardwalks, all the way down to the very last lower lake and the 'Big Waterfall'.

It is really hard to put into words just how incredibly unique and beautiful this place is. Neither of us have ever seen anything quite like it and it was one of the most unspoiled and gorgeous places we have ever visited. It was a truly memorable and magical day.
After a long and wonderful day trekking around the park we finished off with a beer at our favourite little bar in Rastoke on top of a waterfall looking over the river, then we had a quiet dinner at home.
And then we watched a documentary about the Plitvice Lakes National Park because that is how we roll these days!

(Photos: Plitvice Lakes National Park).

On Tuesday morning we had breakfast at the apartment and checked out at 10am to begin our drive down to Dubrovnik. The roads in Croatia are all quite new (most having been repaired/upgraded since the war) and in good condition and much nicer to drive on than the roads in Italy. We particularly enjoyed seeing the scenery change from the lush green mountain forests to the rocky coastal terrain after passing through the tunnels, although the high winds up on the mountain roads were a little challenging in the small hire car. We also crossed through a border crossing into Bosnia and travelled through Bosnia for about 5km along the coast before entering then back into Croatia without any hassle.
Once we were about 2 hours North of Dubrovnik the highway snaked from the mountains to sit down along the coastline and we had fabulous views of the Adriatic Sea to finish off the long drive.
We arrived in Dubrovnik and checked into our Airbnb apartment in Lapad around 5.45pm. Once again our friendly host welcomed up with some of his homemade rakjia. We settled in and had a tapas style dinner at a local restaurant Peppers Eatery on Gruz harbour before turning in for the night.
(Photos: mountain views; tunnels; coastal views; apartment in Dubrovnik).

Wednesday morning we returned the hire car (a brand new Citroen) to Dubrovnik Airport without issue and then took the Atlas shuttle bus back to Gruz harbour.
After a cloudy morning the sun finally came out around lunch time so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach.
We arrived at Uvala Lapad (main swimming beach of Lapad) with towels in hand only to find that the entire promenade was under construction! We were disappointed but determined to enjoy one of Dubrovnik's famous beaches so we walked up over the hill from Lapad to neighbouring Babin Kuk and went to the Copacabana Beach which was small but was open so we put down our towels and headed straight for the water. We were so excited to have a swim in the crystal clear blue water but it was extremely cold so we could only manage a short dip in the water and then we just sat on the pebble beach soaking up some sunshine.
We had planned to settle in for the afternoon on the beach and just lie back and enjoy the nice weather, but then all of a sudden an afternoon thunderstorm blew in and we had to make a mad dash from the beach to the local caravan park where we called a taxi to take us home.
At that point we decided to just call it a day and spent the evening relaxing at the apartment.
(Photos: our first view of the Old City from the highway to the airport; construction at Uvala Lapad; Copacabana Beach).

Thursday we took a local bus into the Old Town for our first proper look at the city and for our Game of Thrones tour at 9.30am.
We spent 2.5hours with our guide Robert who showed us all around the Old Town and pointed out various filming locations from the show as well as providing information about Dubrovnik's history. Robert has been an extra on several episodes of Game of Thrones (most notably S2 Ep6), as have many of his friends and family members so he had some wonderful inside knowledge and behind the scenes details regarding the filming of the show. We rarely take organised tours but we really enjoyed this one as we are both big GOT fans. I originally only started watching the show when Matt and I first started dating because he was always talking about how good it was and I wanted to be able to talk to him about it. There was one girl in our tour group (7 people in total) who was not a fan of the show, had never seen it and had no interest in seeing it but had seemingly been dragged into the tour by her friend who was a fan. I felt bad for her because the whole tour was completely focused on GOT and it must have been so boring for her.
We saw loads of filming locations from various seasons of the show, mostly Kings Landing locations but also a couple of locations from Qarth such as the tower used for the House of the Undying.
We began the tour just outside the Pile Gate of the Old City but instead of heading straight into the city Robert took us up some stairs to visit Fort Lovrijenac, which is just outside the Old City. Fort Lovrijenac is used for a large number of scenes from inside the Red Keep.
(Photos: the Brsalje Fountain outside Pile Gate where we met up with our group; climbing up to Fort Lovrijenac; looking up to the Fort; views of Dubrovnik from the Fort; filming locations for the tourney on Joffrey's Nameday S2 Ep1).

We then walked down to a small beach just outside the Old City gates which was used as the beach where Cersei sends off Myrcella on the ship to Dorne and also where she and the Mountain await her return.

We made our way though the Pile Gate and into the Old City where Robert pointed out various locations used for minor scenes such as the gate Jaime enters through when he first returns to Kings Landing with Brienne (S3 Ep10). In particular we saw the locations used to film the Kings Landing riot scenes from S2 Ep6.
We continued walking through the narrow, steep alleys of the Old City and saw the building used as the exterior of Littlefinger's brothel and various locations from Cersei's walk of shame (S5 Ep10).
(Photos: the Pile Gate; the steps at the Sept of Baelor where Cersei beings her walk of shame; front entrance of Littlefinger's Brothel).

The tour began at the Pile gate and then finished across town at the Ploce gate so as such we grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby bakery and then made our way to the entry to the Mount Srd cable car. Whilst lining up for the cable car we met a nice Australian couple whom we continued chatted to during the ride. Once at the top of Mount Srd we enjoyed a 360 degree view of Dubrovnik, snapped some photos of course, and laughed at some ridiculous tourists standing in incredibly dangerous places on the cliffside trying to take the perfect selfie.
When we took the cable car back down to the city we visited the Game of Thrones souvenir shop and took the obligatory picture of the Iron

Throne replica, had a drink in the Old Town then went home.
That evening we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Orka Restaurant on Gruz harbour which had a gorgeous view and delicious food and Matt was finally ably to enjoy some local seafood.
(Photos: the Ploce Gate; Dubrovnik harbour; Mount Srd Cable Car an views from Mount Srd; the Iron Throne; Gruz Harbour; Orka Restaurant).

Friday we took the bus back to the Old Town to a small beach area near the Pile Gate where we met our tour guide for our 10am kayaking tour over to Lokrum Island. This was a larger tour group with almost 30 people and 3 guides but it was so much fun! The weather was absolutely perfect with not a cloud in the sky and just a gentle breeze.
We paddled over to Lokrum, learned about some history of the Island including the fort built by Napolean and his army, the Franciscan monestary and more filming locations for GOT, then we paddled into a sea cave for a break.
After the short break we paddled right across the bay to yet another sea cave where we stopped for lunch, Matt and a few others did a cliff dive and we all took a swim (the sea temperature was much warmer than on Wednesday, still a little chilly but too gorgeous not to swim). Then we paddled back towards the city and had a fabulous view of the city walls from the sea. We also paddled past the GOT filming location where Prince Oberyn gets his head crushed by the Mountain and also saw the hotel where the GOT cast stay during filming.
After finishing the tour we sat at a small, quiet bar just above the beach on the cliff and had some beers with a nice couple we met on the tour (Australian guy and Norwegian girl) before heading home.
We had an early pizza dinner at Minceta Caffe just down the road from the apartment and then we were home by 7pm for an early night as we had to be up around 5.30am the next morning to be ready for our bus back to the airport and our flight to Athens.
(Photos: kayaking trip to Lokrum Island).