{"id":2490,"date":"2019-06-27T11:02:41","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T15:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=2490"},"modified":"2019-06-27T11:11:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T15:11:46","slug":"eastern-europe-day-13-monday-may-27-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=2490","title":{"rendered":"Eastern Europe, Day 13 – Monday, May 27, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plitvi\u010de Lakes National Park, Croatia to Istria, Croatia<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Plitvi\u010de Lakes National Park is a 100 square mile forest reserve in central Croatia.\u00a0 Yesterday we saw a waterfall near the entrance of the park. That was just the beginning. Plitvi\u010de is known for its sixteen\u00a0 terraced lakes joined by\u00a0 countless waterfalls that extend into a limestone canyon. Walkways and hiking trails wind around and across the water, and one of the highlights is\u00a0 a 250 ft.-high waterfall. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Plitvi\u010de gets a million visitors annually.\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Katerina knew this, and she also knew the rain wouldn’t keep the crowds away. She wanted us to have the best possible experience with the fewest possible crowds. She arranged for breakfast to begin at 6:30 AM.\u00a0 She thought there would be fewer people to deal with if we\u00a0 arrived just as the park opened, took a shuttle to the end of the park, and then walked back to the beginning rather than starting from the beginning with everyone else. That is what we did.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>T\"\"<\/a>here were waterfalls on our left, on our right, ahead of us, and behind us. Each one\u00a0 was more magnificent than the next. They were just breathtaking.<\/p>\n

Nick and I lunched at the restaurant at the end of the trail (really, the beginning). We joined\u00a0 a table of two men\u00a0 from Uruguay who were speaking Spanish, and I was able to converse with them. I loved the experience!\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sam,\u00a0 our driver, arrived\u00a0 with the bus, and we began our journey to Istria, a peninsula across the Adriatic from Italy. We proceeded to the\u00a0 coastal town of Rovinj, and from there, we took a ferry to Katarina Island, the location of our hotel, aptly named the Island Hotel Katarina.\u00a0 There were lots of oohs and ahhs on this trip, but when I saw this hotel on this island, I was totally charmed. There were water views on all sides, and each room had a balcony with a view. The island was serenely quiet and incredibly beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We took the ferry back to the mainland for dinner at a restaurant called Masteral, where we enjoyed a salad of fresh seafood, a first course of seafood risotto and a filled pizza,\u00a0 and\u00a0 a main course of sea bream, with ice cream for dessert. This was our best meal of the trip!<\/p>\n

Before leaving the restaurant,\u00a0 I asked Nick, who had already been there, where the rest rooms were.\u00a0 He replied, “You have to go around the building, and then go over a moat, and after that, go up a flight a of stairs that doesn’t have handrails.” I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

17,845 steps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plitvi\u010de Lakes National Park, Croatia to Istria, Croatia Plitvi\u010de Lakes National Park is a 100 square mile forest reserve in central Croatia.\u00a0 Yesterday we saw a waterfall near the entrance of the park. That was just the beginning. Plitvi\u010de is known for its sixteen\u00a0 terraced lakes joined by\u00a0 countless waterfalls that extend into a limestone … Continue reading Eastern Europe, Day 13 – Monday, May 27, 2019<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[14,13,15],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eastern-europe-2019","tag-europe","tag-rick-steves-tours","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2517,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions\/2517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}