10,055 steps, 4.55 miles, 31 floors
We wake up and Teo calls us a cab. €3.70 for a Mercedes to take us to the station, haha. I wish American cabs cost that little. It's another cabin-train with lots of reserved seats and a couple of big groups, so after an initial scare that we might have to sit apart or in the hallway, we end up with plenty of room in a 6-person cabin. It's a 2-hr ride to Croatian capital Zagreb, and then we walk to a bus for Plitvice.
We stop at one point and an intimidating policeman says something I don't understand, then I show him my ticket...to which he responds "passport." We end up having to do this twice--for the Croatian and Slovenian immigration, and we end up getting the stamps we longed for in Sezana. After they finish, we're officially in Croatia and we get going again.
Zagreb is eerie. It's very gray weather and it just looks like everyone left the city. There is this big open square that has maybe 30 people milling about (and catching blue streetcars) while three hari krishnas play some weird jams...but the square could fit about 300,000 people. We walk the way I think is the bus station, and hopefully it's like a mile walk. But the whole way is creepy. I think Sierra feels the same, but I can't wait to leave Zagreb.
When we turn right and see the bus station, I'm immediately happy to be close to out of town. We walk in and buy tickets and walk around looking food options, but they all look questionable. There is a "sexy shop" but we decide to not go in. After an hour in the station that seems to match the city in creepiness, we jump on the bus.
We don't have a reservation and it's hard to really know what to expect since so much is closed during the winter. Most air BnB are a few miles away, so I tell the driver we want to stop at hotel Jezero...the one open hotel of the three run by the national park. The ride gets snowier as we go, and we pass one reeeeally cool-looking town that has a river running virtually all over it and then off a waterfall. Cray cray. I wish I'd snapped a photo. I get anxious about missing our stop and walk up front when we see the hotel. They drop us off about "300 meters" up from the hotel.
We see a couple of people at the stop across the street, but again it feels like we're virtually alone in a post-apocalyptic future. A man in an old black BMW pulls up and tells us Hotel Jezero is 750 kuna ($110) while his hotel is 300. I stick to the plan to check out the hotel since we have 24 hours there and could use a relaxing stay right next to the park.
We walk down a narrow, snowy highway but fortunately only about 6 cars come...and we're kinda happy to see a hotel. We walk in and they quote us the exact same price as online or in the guide book, but look at us with our huge backpacks like "Are you sure you can afford this?" It's 2:30pm and we are going to catch the same bus tomorrow at 2:30, so it's nice to be able to chill at a quiet hotel for the evening. They have a gym and a hot tub and sauna, a couple restaurants, etc.
We head out to see the park before dark. It's "closed," meaning you can't ride the train or boat, but you can still walk in. It was breathtaking: cloudy but not a soul in the park. We literally saw one couple on the trail as we went in, and one as we went out. It was tranquil, frozen, picturesque, and got us excited for tomorrow, that's for sure.
We go to dinner and are the only ones in a massive, cafeteria-like restaurant. A few people roll in as we eat. I tried trout "Plitvice style" and Sierra had chicken that was like super-bland thai yellow curry. It tasted like cafeteria food. Our waitress was very polite and said "please" at the beginning, middle and end of each sentence. It was kinda like Tom Hanks' character in "The Terminal." She also threw in a "good appetite" for good measure.
After a few jokes about how this big, empty, snowy lodge felt like The Shining, we went upstairs and planned out our next few days before we went to bed.
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