Road Trip Part One: Dubrovnik to Pltivice Lakes National Park and Ljubljana

And so the day arrived that we had to say goodbye to dear old, and I mean OLD, Dubrovnik and set back out into the world. We bid farewell to our Airbnb hostess and the cats outside of the apartment, then set off for a 5 hour drive north. We were heading to stay the night outside of Plitvice Lakes National Park. In fact, we were staying the night in a teepee because we are [Chris, who was making the booking, is] whimsical like that. As it turned out, this teepee had beds, electricity and wifi access so it was more of a glamping teepee experience than you might first imagine.

Saying goodbye to Sun

Our drive was long but uneventful and we checked into our teepee as dusk fell. We were kind of impressed and intrigued with the  accommodations -- there was something for everyone at Turist Grobovac, from modern cabins to traditional campsites to, of course, teepees. We wished we were staying there another evening. If you go, this is just what you should do.
We ate dinner in the restaurant and then settled in, feeling something we hadn't felt in a long time: cold! We were supplied warm blankets but I slept in a lot of layers that night, in fact, I slept in most of my layers.

Two guesses as to what this gathering of teepees was called

The next morning we were out of the site relatively early (for us!) and drove the 10 minutes or so to the entrance to Plitvice Lakes National Park. I was super excited, I'd been really wanting to go here and had been reading all about it. After a delay of game due to a grumpy player which then led to other key players becoming displeased with the situation, we gathered our composure, purchased our tickets and set forth. We walked across bridge going over a road, then through some hotel grounds, then down a long private driveway that bottomed out, we eventually figured out, at a tram stop. It seemed like it might lead to disappointment. Where were these lakes? And this beauty I'd heard/read so much about?
Suspiciously, I boarded a tram with my family. Chris had it all figured out: we would take the tram up to the upper region, walk down, take a boat across the lower region and then somehow make our way to the exit. Sure. Lets see these lakes. As the tram made its way up (its about a 10 minute ride), I began to see some clues of the beauty we were about to encounter.
All I can say is don't doubt the internet. Despite its strangely unassuming entrance, this is one of the  most beautiful and magical places we have ever seen. Wooden walkways throughout the park lead through the woods, next to astonishingly clear green and turquoise lakes and waterfalls coursing over mossy rocks. The day was sunny and warm. We walked happily for a couple of  hours, stopping to take [too] many photos. Everything was unbelievably beautiful. We had a picnic lunch and made our way to the boat across the lake. It was one of the most gorgeous things we've experienced. We continued walking for several more hours, eventually making our way up and above the lakes we'd just walked next to. There is really no way I can do this place justice. Look at our photos, or look on the Internet and know that they don't reveal anything near the full glory of this wonderful spot. We left, tired but thrilled by the experience. It was time to say goodbye to Croatia for really reals and head on to our next chapter -- a couple of days in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The drive from Plitvice to Ljubljana was happily uneventful until reaching the Slovenian border. We stopped at passport control and were stamped out of Croatia and drove onward. Strange, I thought, I had imagined there would be another building soon after where Slovenia would stamp us in. This had been our experience going through to Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina. Chris thought so too. Oh well, it sure is pretty, I thought to myself. All green and quaint.
Surely you must realize at this point that we had a mishap -- luckily a minor one (I attribute this to the way we present and our passport). At this checkpoint, the stamp out and the stamp in were in the same place. We had neglected to stop the car at the next *window,* expecting another *building.* This set off a chain of events involving the police chasing our car throughout the initial Slovenian drive, and an officer knocking on Chris's window while our car was stopped at a red light. He had his stamp in hand and stamped us into Slovenia. He and I both asked Chris why he didn't stop -- the officer meant at the window, I meant when he had seen a police car chasing him in his rearview mirror (!). "I didn't know," Chris responded, "that he was actually chasing me!"
Without any more drama, we soon found our way to our VRBO in Ljubljana, where our hosts had kindly set out cake pans for us…we had some important baking to do the next day.

Slovenian wildlife crossing on way to Ljubljana