Day 13: Thu 22nd – Plitvice National Park & Lake Balaton - Hungary

Sunrise 6:45am – Sunset 6:44pm

Weather Forecast:   Plitvice 16c & partly cloudy. Lake Balaton 18 & partly cloudy
Steps:     14,163     9.77 km

Todays post will have lots of photos and not too much writing.  It was a long day.

Wake up call was at 6:30 this morning but I think most of us were up well before that. I have done the walk through Plitvice National Park (see here) once before and it really is beautiful.  If any of you ever come to Croatia, this is one place that you should make an effort to visit.

It was definitely a cool morning to start with.

Breakfast was served from 6:30 this morning and as this hotel  has about 7 or 8 coach tours staying here, 3 of them Insight tours, a few of us made sure that we were at breakfast very early.  When we walked into the dining room, it was like walking into an ice bucket, as they had 2 of the large doors wide open and the early morning cold air was flowing in. Karin walked in about a minute later and closed them.  

Within about 20-30 minutes more & more people arrived and the staff were a little slack in keeping the food replenished.

We all took our hand luggage out to the coach, shortly before 8am, met our local guide Blanca and started the walking tour.  

Everyone did the first section of the walk

Misty morning

The water is so crystal clear.

and when the option came to take the shorter version of the 2nd section, 4 or 5 people, some with minor mobility problems, took that option. Before starting on the 2nd part of the walk, Karin had arranged another Insight flourish of donuts.  Delicious.  

The rest of us finished the 2nd section sometime before midday and the crowds were horrendous, for most of it.

Nice sized fish

We were all on the bus and on our way by midday.  Passed through the pretty little town of Slunj, famous for its little waterfalls and the well-preserved corn mills (dating back to the 18th century)

Lunch stop just out of Karlovak for 50 minutes and on the road again at 2:25.

We were bypassing Zagreb shortly before 3pm and hit a traffic jam on the highway. 2 lanes are merged into one and the amount of trucks!!!  It's almost like the queues  before the borders were opened.

Crossed the river Mura and arrived at the border at the Letenye crossing, at 4:25pm. Passports were collected by the Croatian officials, checked, stamped then handed to the Hungarian officials, checked and stamped and we received them back at 5:10. 

Lake Balaton is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. We are here for 2 nights.

As we didnt arrive at Balatonfured until 7:20 pm, we went directly to the restaurant for dinner. We were greeted with a glass of Palinka (Hungarian schnapps). A nice 3 course meal was served and after dinner we went straight to our hotel, where our luggage had already been delivered to our rooms.  We arrived there around 9:30pm.  

No wake up call tomorrow but breakfast is served from 8:30am and we depart at 9:30 for our days activities. A fairly lazy day tomorrow.