I awoke this morning at 6 o clock to the sound of exotic birds in the trees outside going bwark and cheep and nark-nark in that extraordinary way that birds do in national parks when there's nobody around to throw a shoe at them - it was one onomatopoeic forest out there this morning. I found it utterly delightful, in fact, after staying in built up areas for the last few weeks, to finally be able to open a window and look out on something other than a hundred thousand people trying to form two lanes on a carriageway only containing one. Of course, there was the small matter of the car park beneath my window, but I couldn't help noticing that beyond it was a grassy verge sloping gently down to the first of the lakes, and I could hear the sound of what seemed like a million waterfalls in the distance, so I thought it best just to tune the concrete out for a moment and pretend it wasn't there.

Breakfast this morning was a welcome start to what was going to be a long day, although at no point did any of the staff at the Bellevue hotel actually bother to ask for my room key or make any attempt to enquire as to whether or not I was actually supposed to be on the premises - they had to get up at the crack of dawn to put it out, and goddamn it they were going to give it to everyone whether they wanted it or not. To be fair, we are in the middle of nowhere here, so I guess they figure that anyone willing to get up at midnight and drive out to Plitvice for a free bowl of cornflakes probably deserves everything they can surreptitiously secrete about their person. Lets be honest, most people seem to empty the breakfast bar into their pockets and take it with them for lunch anyway.

There are two central hotels at Plitvice Jezera - the imaginatively named Plitvice Hotel and the neighbouring Bellevue, both of which are so close to where you actually want to be every day that you could almost fall out the door into the lake. While the Bellevue, in which I am staying, could be compared more to a motel than a high class hotel, the Plitvice was clearly the first on the block, being as it is a labyrinthine mess of twisting corridors and stairs connected to a lobby worthy of any London five star hotel. The Bellevue, in fact, feels very much as though it was bolted on as an afterthought when the Hotel Plitvice ran out of rooms - the welcome booklet seems absolutely convinced that it doesn't exist at all and that I am, in fact, staying across the road. It is also keen to bring to my attention the fact that there is "a book of complaints available at reception", which rather suggests that the management is either ridiculously pessimistic about the whole thing or so optimistic that they've had all their previous complaints printed up as a collected edition as a sort of before and after device. Anyway, if you're looking for somewhere to hold a conference or an exhibition, or you feel like splashing out an eye-watering £185 a night on a suite, then the Hotel Plitvice is the one for you - otherwise, assuming your main reason for visiting a beautiful national park is to actually get out there and look at the scenery, then the Bellevue is probably going to be more up your street. The Plitvice is right across the car park anyway, and guests of either hotel can make use of the facilities at no extra charge, so paying less to stay in essentially the same place really is something of a no-brainer.

The restaurant for both hotels is situated in the Plitvice, and I must've managed to rack up quite a few miles trotting back and forth today before I finally got to eat anything - mainly due to my own stupidity. First, I looked the menu over and came to the conclusion that I could save a whole heap of cash by spending 90 Kuna extra to upgrade to half board so that I could avoid having to shell out thick wads of banknotes every evening just to eat. Having trotted back to reception at the Bellevue, I was informed that half board would only let me choose from two preset menu options each evening - something which hotels routinely do simply to wind people up. As a general rule, half board means that you can pay a fixed price for the privilege of being forced to eat something you don't want from a special menu while everyone else around you tucks into anything on the real menu - it is very much the book token of the hospitality industry. They hadn't told me any of this back at the restaurant, of course, so back I trotted to the Plitvice to examine the delights of the half board menu, which for some reason was not available to view at reception, and then back again to the Bellvue to take them up on their offer. When I pointed out politely to the lady behind the desk that it might be a good idea to actually have the menu on display at reception where people could look at it when checking in, she actually stared into the middle distance for so long that I had to look behind me to see what she was looking at, before conceding that this was, in fact, a good idea worthy of being passed on to management. When I did finally manage to sit down for dinner tonight, without my wallet, I was surprised to discover that the woman in charge seemed to think she in the Third Reich, snapping her fingers and ordering her staff about with a lot of shouting and stern pointing at tables the moment they stood still for half a second - which can't exactly be motivating. I particularly enjoy freaking people out in these situations by sitting at my table tapping away on my iPhone and inspecting my food in minute detail as I look around and smile at the waiters sweetly. I do tend to find that the service mysteriously improves as soon as somebody starts wondering if I'm an important undercover food critic from Posh Nosh Magazine.

And thats another thing. When did restaurants start serving meat on skewers? Apart from the very real danger of accidentally stabbing yourself in the face half way through dinner while attempting to separate a chunk of chicken from an unnecessarily pointy metal stick, it forces you to resort to the use of fingers in a restaurant where people are already looking at you funny for not turning up wearing a dinner jacket and black tie. The only jackets I want to see at dinner come wrapped around my potatoes, thank you very much.

But I digress.

Access to Plitvice National Park - or Plitvicka Jezera to give it its official name - is possible all year around on foot, with single day tickets ranging from 55 Kuna in January to 180 Kuna during peak season with 7 Kuna per hour to park your car. Be aware, however, that the electric boats and panoramic road train do not operate from January to March, so if you turn up during that time you're going to have to do a considerable amount of walking - which may not seem like much of a challenge, until you realise that there are eight different walking trails from the main entrance and two of them have a recommended walking time of between six and eight hours, which also gives you a pretty good idea of the size of the park. If you want to see as much of Plitvice as possible in a day, you're going to want to combine at least two of the walking trails, and that's going to mean setting out early and packing a lunch - although during peak and mid-season the less energetic can choose to walk in one direction and hop on the hourly road train for the return journey, or make use of the fleet of electric boats which constantly shuttle passengers back and forth between the furthest reaches of the park.

Two day tickets are also available for those who wish to stay in the adjoining campground or make their own way to the park, but from my experience so far I would have to say that even this isn't enough. Plitvice, you see, is somewhere you are going to want to spend time exploring, and for this reason I would highly recommend booking yourself into one of the central hotels for at least three nights. That way, you can set out on your hike earlier and get back later, and if you plan your trip in advance to arrive and depart on the 6pm bus from Dubrovnik or Split (check for up to date timetables), you'll have the advantage of being able to drop your luggage off in reception at the end of your visit and spend a fourth day in the park at no extra cost. If you're staying in either of the central hotels, of course, your entrance fee to the park is included for as long as you're staying. Another reason for making sure you spend just that little extra time in the park is as an aid to avoiding disappointment. Today, for example, the sun came out for all of about 5 minutes - which was a major disappointment as the weather up until this point has been virtually tropical. It really didn't want to come out at all, but managed to do so for just long enough for me to walk down to the lake, take a boat to the far end of the park and begin hiking the first of the trails back - at which point the sky opened up and the waterfalls all doubled in volume. Now, try to imagine what happens to a park full of waterfalls during a heavy rainstorm - let's just say that not everywhere is going to be accessible until at least the next day when the water has subsided and the park rangers have had time to race around in panic mode telling stupid people not to attempt to wade through the 6 foot deep mini-lake which has suddenly appeared between two previously accessible sections of boardwalk. In short, visiting the park when the sun is shining is an entirely different experience from visiting it when it's been raining - and since Plitvice is not somewhere you can just pop back to another day, I see that extra time allotted to your visit to be something of an insurance policy against having your trip washed out when the sky unexpectedly opens up on the day you choose to visit.

Don't get me wrong here - I've still thoroughly enjoyed my first day in the park and managed to walk all the way back to the hotel from the far end despite the lake trying its hardest to wash me off the boardwalk at every opportunity. If anything, the waterfalls are at their most spectacular when the man upstairs has emptied the sea into them - after all, massive amounts of water cascading over a cliff is pretty much what you want from a waterfall - it's just that the experience is far easier for enjoy when somebody isn't tipping massive amounts of water over your head at the same time, making it painful just to open your eyes wide enough to look at anything. For this reason, I've spent most of today doing pretty much what I swore I wasn't going to do and travelling about the park by boat, peering at the waterfalls from a respectable distance and generally taking in the awesomeness of it all. Is awesomeness a word? The park is no less spectacular when it's raining - it's just that you're probably not going to enjoy an 8 hour hike that much when you're wearing a massive raincoat and the only direction you can look is down at your feet. Tomorrow, hopefully, the sun will return to its previous splendour and I'll be able to get up at the crack of dawn and walk until my feet fall off. Which is very much what I came here for.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.