Leaving Split today and heading for Zagreb. Sorry to leave Split, and in particular our hotel for the past few days, Palaca Judita (no Julie, you can't take Andrej home with you). If any of you are thinking about coming to Split in the near future, do yourselves a favor and come. And make sure you stay at the Palace Judita, you won't be sorry - it would have to be the most perfect hotel we have ever stayed in.

Anyway, Zagreb - our final stop in Croatia before heading up to Budapest. Since we have once again been blessed with perfect weather, we've decided to do a bit of a side trip on the way and visit one of Croatia's national treasures, Plitvice Lakes National Park. It's going to add an extra few hours to the trip but we think it is worth it.

Again the drive is quite spectacular - a mixture of craggy ridge lines, snow capped peaks, and broad flat valleys covered in a light blanket of snow. Even if the lakes prove to be disappointing, the drive has been worth it.

After an hour or so we made it to the national park area and eventually found the information kiosk to enter the park (Croatia isn't real big on clear signage). We listened really carefully to the ticket seller and finally deduced that the entry ticket (10 euros each) entitled us to a 1 1/2 hour self guided hike down to the valley floor, along a series of lakes and waterfalls, a ferry ride across the last lake, and a bus ride back to the start point. Bargain. How hard can that be?

Well, the walk was one of the most spectacular we have done. Words don't do it justice. Even the photos we took seem inadequate. Suffice to say - WOW!!

Struck a bit of a problem at the end of the walk - Julie's boots were giving her a blister on her foot. By the time she got to the ferry point she was hobbling along on one foot. Just as well the walking part was over - wrong. Got off the ferry on the other side of the lake and discovered there was a 1/2km walk up to where the bus was to pick us up (yes, uphill). By now Julie was really struggling, each step was excruciating. Anyway, finally made it to the bus and off we went. Plain sailing from here - wrong again. The bus stopped about 1km short of where we started from - "10 minutes that way" said the bus driver. As anyone knows, whenever someone in a foreign country tells you "10 minute walk", then you just know its at least 20 minutes!! By now Julie is is really starting to feel it. Thankfully the final part of the trip was on relatively flat ground which made it easier for her. Even so, she had to take off her boot for the last couple of hundred meters - thankfully the weather was still relatively mild so she didn't suffer any frostbite.

Safely back in the car we headed off for Zagreb, about 2 hours. Just to round off the day, we had about 100km of regional road to travel on - twisty windy regional road. And it seems every truck in Croatia uses regional roads to get from A to B (now we know why there are no trucks on the freeways). Made the trip longer by about an hour. Which meant we hit Zagreb at peak traffic time. So we crawled the last 10km to our hotel. A perfect end to the day.