The Wrong Bus Stop

We had a relaxing morning in Rovinj preparing for what we thought would be a tricky day of traveling. Sue went on a run, we ate delicious croissants at our free breakfast and headed to the bus station 20 minutes early. Somehow we managed to almost miss the bus we needed (because it had been sitting in the station for 30 minutes and we didn't notice it).
The bus ride was a little amusing because Rovinj is on a peninsula called Istria. The bus left Rovinj, heading south, the eventually went back north. After 2.5 hours of driving on back roads we were 24 kilometers from Rovinj. That is about 15 miles. Hmmm....

We made it to Karlovac and made our connecting bus in 5 minutes only! During this 5 minutes we needed to make and eat our lunch because we had splurged on tuna in a can and some multigrain crackers as a change from cheese and bread, but we felt rude eating tuna on a crowded bus....So, Janna drained the tuna (which turned out to be in oil instead of water-yuck) and we hopped on the bus to eat our smelly lunch.It was a very full bus; we were in the very back in the last two seats empty, but we were on the bus- hurrah!

After some very windy roads we eventually arrived at the stop called Plitvice Camping. We knew this wasn't our stop- we wanted Plitvice hotels. So, at the next stop where there was a big map of Plitvice Lakes National Park, we got off the bus. And soon realized how wrong we were to get off there.

Other than the big sign, there were two small guesthouses and a grocery store. Didn't look like Plitvice. Using the map and our poor directions, we were not quite sure where we were. So Sue went into the grocery store and (tried to) ask. We found out it was about 7 kilometers further along. We had gotten off the bus way too early.

But, there were no taxis to be found, no busses to ride. What were we going to do but walk? So we began walking. Remember, we are carrying our rolly bags and walking along the side of a road. To make it even better, the road soon began climbing a mountain pass so all but the first 1/2 mile of our walk was quite uphill.

After about 1.5 hours of hiking (which even Sue did not enjoy) we arrived at the first entrance of the park. Our hotel was past the second entrance and easily another 3 miles along. Sue got up the courage to ask a park ranger what the best way to get there would be, and as luck would have it, he actually worked at the second entrance and was being driven there by a friend in a very short amount of time and welcomed us along for the ride. What a wonderful wonderful man.

We got in his friends car and he took us right to our hotel. Sometimes luck is on our side. We have never been so happy to be in the car with two strange men.

After checking in, and still very anxious to get to the park that we had traveled so far to get to, we literally ran the trails to get there (about a mile away).

The park was amazing and lovely and we walked most of its large area between 5 and 8:30 at night, seeing so many waterfalls and lakes, and very few people during the last hour of our journey (hmmm...everyone else had left the park at that time). By the time we headed back to our hotel, we were exhausted and starving.

Across from our hotel was a Pizza Bistro, and the lack of table cloths on the tables encouraged us to sit down without even seeing a menu. Vegetariana pizza yet again. This one proved to be the most interesting yet. It was a jumbo pizza with about 48 small shreds of cheese spread across it and 1/2 cup of what seemed like frozen vegetable mix (peas, carrots, corn). Interesting.
With full stomachs, we collapsed into bed.