Sretan Valentinovo!!

That's Happy Valentine's Day in Croatian! Kyle and I perhaps gave ourselves the best present ever by arranging a trip to Plitvice Lakes in Croatia. We first heard of the lakes when our good friend Jesslyn randomly texted me one day with this stunningly beautiful image. I took one look at it, and totally rearranged our entire trip that I had been planning, so that the lakes could be fitted into the schedule. I decided to go with a tour guide, as it is virtually impossible to get to Plitvice Lakes without renting a car, and there was no way in hell Kyle or I were going to rent a car to get there and back. I found a great site, www.zagrebtours.com, and voila, our guide Mirko met us promptly at 8:30am in our hotel lobby, as cheerful as can be at such an early and cold hour.

The drive to Plitvice Lakes from Zagreb is about an hour and half, and apparently the day before we got here to Zagreb, it had been snowing/storming like crazy. When we first got to Zagreb yesterday, everything was insanely covered in snow and slushy. Zagreb was dumped with literally a foot of snow. Today, no snow at all and not a cloud in the sky. It was beautiful, and for the first time, it felt like it was above 32 degrees, which is GREAT.

All along the ride, we got to learn ALL about Croatia's history from Mirko. He is extremely well-versed in politics, travels, and history. We learned all about the war in the 1990s that destroyed part of Croatia, and we saw the site where the fighting had taken place with the Serbs:

Serbian fighter jet downed by the Croatians

Mirko took us to a site where a lot of the weapons/modes of transport used were displayed outside. It's unreal how many bullet holes were in that small little town, EVERYWHERE. You can definitely tell the fighting was intense. From that point, Bosnia was only 20 kilometers away...

We made our way to Plitvice Lakes a little pensive. The park is part of the UNESCO Heritage Sites, and rightfully so. It is GORGEOUS. Because of the intense snowstorms and extreme cold temperatures, the entire place had frozen over, including the waterfalls, and a pretty and delicate layer of snow covered everything. Our tour guide had only seen this once, but not in this pristine condition, and we heard another tour guide saying that we were about 200 in a couple million people who would ever see the lakes like this. It was that rare. Kyle and I hiked, with Mirko, for a good damn SIX miles. And let me tell you something- boots from Banana Republic are NOT meant for hiking. I didn't realize we would be going down treacherous trails, ON SNOW, THROUGH SNOW, with no railings. Some parts, we were literally wading through a foot of snow, and some other areas were so narrow that you had to go waist-deep into the snow. In the end, however, it was all very well worth it. Plitvice Lakes has got to be one of the most stunning places I've ever been to, and combined with the fact that it had frozen over...well, it definitely proved to be an afternoon where I believe you can see God's influence on nature as it is meant to be (not to get all preachy or anything). I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (they aren't even photoshopped, btw...) :

Plitvice Lakes in the Winter Pictures:

Frozen lake, ALL OVER

Note: I am NOT made for hiking...

Stunning.

Me trudging along with Mirko

In front of this completely frozen waterfall.

Massive and frozen.

Deer tracks :)

Feel so small in this place :)

Over and out. We came back here and PASSED OUT. About to go to bed soon...will explore Zagreb a little tomorrow, even though there's not really much, except for a bunch of museums and churches...headed to Dubrovnik tomorrow :)

~Kristen