National Treasure

It’s not all about city walls and fortresses and trams. Nature plays a major part in my trips. I shall humbly ooh and ahh on shores, in the mountains, by bubbling brooks. 

And one of the best and most accessible places to go off track are national parks. Well, strictly speaking not off track since one is supposed to stay on the tracks in national parks. 

Also, occasionally, one is most definitely NOT alone. But here again low season plays nicely into my hands: Most tour groups are gone and the entry prices have plummeted. E.g. in Plitvička Jezera national park the entry in high season is a steep 40€, from the start of November 10€.

Apart from solo wandering on mountain meadows and lonely seashores, I have visited three national parks on this trip. 

The first was Krka National park in Croatia (note the unfortunate shortage of vowels in Croatia. There is also the island of Krk though, so I suppose the national park was lucky to even get one vowel).

Though Krka national park covers a larger area, only the Roski waterfalls are easy access. The waterfalls were pretty, even rather spectacular, in the way waterfalls tend to be. So lets move on to the next park.

Already mentioned above, Croatia’s best known, oldest and largest national park is Plitvička Jezera. And the item everyone rushes to see are the plitviča Lakes. 

According to the Croatians, there are seven lakes in Plotviča. Now as a Finn from the land of 168000 lakes (according to Google), I have a slightly different take on what constitutes a lake. In Plitvica there is indeed one lake - and then around six ponds - or even more accurately, six bits of swollen river between rapids/waterfalls. But since Croatians don’t have that many lakes, and since these are so pretty, I’ll let them call all seven lakes and enjoy the rather smashing view.

This takes me to the final national park on this trip, Triglav, Slovenia’s one and only National Park. The park covers most of the Julian Alps.

And as the scenic heart of the park, Bohinji lake. 

At night, fog covers the views, but the clear bright light of day burns it away, already leaving the ground frosty on the northern slopes that get no direct sunlight.

One can wander around the lake on rarely trodden forest paths. 

I met no-one on the way. The solitude could be distressing for some damsels, but years of foraging for mushrooms and berries in Finnish forests have left me well adapted to this.

I also followed a turquoise river 

at times winding in a deep gorge 

I climbed up the mountain,

through misty forests 

and Alpine meadows that made me think of the old Heidi the goat herd films.

A lovely place to trek by any standards.

Tomorrow I leave my lofty Alpine perch and head back down to the sea - and the last leg of this journey. 

The only way is upwards and onwards!