May 31, 2018
We woke up early at our damp “Minnesota stone lodge”, and got ready for the day. Our hostess offers a buffet style breakfast for €7 each so I went down to check it out. Deciding breakfast was not worth that steep a price, we loaded up our backpacks (big backpack and daypack) and checked out of the room.
We walked fully loaded to the market where I bought us pastries, small iced coffee drinks (special treat) and our picnic lunch for 38 kuna or $6. We quickly ate outside of the market, then walked fully loaded the 1.5 km to the park entrance. Our hostess told us there was a (free!) baggage check at entrance 2 and we hope she’s right. She was, thank heavens, so we chucked our big backpacks in, bought the entrance tickets and hopped aboard the park shuttle to entrance 1.
We were hoping Plitvice would not be as crowded as Krka, but that was just the delusions of simple folk. There were plenty of people there, especially at the big waterfall, but it’s laid out in a way that you can get really good, picturesque photos of the falls without tons of other people there.
We spent the day walking all over the park, then retrieved our bags from the luggage room and waited for the bus to Zagreb. Thanks to Mari, who helped us out from home, we have tickets for our journey.
Once in Zagreb, we took the tram from the bus station to the Kaptol area where our room awaits. We have a private double room in a hostel, and although I haven’t seen or heard the other guests, I feel very old indeed to be in a hostel. We unloaded our backpacks, attempted to wash the sweat off, (but why, when it’ll reappear the moment we leave our room) and set off for a little happy hour before we go to a museum. We had the best little snack at a cafe overlooking the city: Dalmatian ham, a sampler of local cheeses, olives, figs, cranberries, nuts and bread to accompany our Croatian wine and beer. Yum.
Our destination was the Museum of Broken Relationships. It was not on our list of must dos, but it’s open til 9 pm and very convenient to us, so we decided we should see it. The next hour and a half were spent treading through the relationships of past that didn’t make it, complete with stories and objects that symbolize the relationship. An axe used to hack apart her furniture, check. The postcard left in the door before a young suitor drove himself off a cliff, yep that too. There were funny and sad stories and a few of the donations were from Colorado relationships.
Once we left the museum, we headed back in the direction of our hostel to have a very late dinner. Or as they say in Croatia, dinner.