I had never heard of Plitvice Lakes National Park until we were planning our European vacation in 2025. Part of the trip involved purchasing a Eurail Pass and spending several weeks traversing Europe by train, starting in Venice, Italy and finishing in Barcelona, Spain, spending 2 or 3 nights in numerous cities along the way. I tried to break up our travel into manageable bites, so we would not be spending more than 4 or 5 hours on the train on any given day. I needed to find a place about halfway between Venice and Salzburg, Austria, and I decided on Ljubljana, Slovenia. I knew nothing about Ljubljana, or Slovenia for that matter, and we would be spending two days there, so I started researching things to do in the area.

While doing my research I came upon an article about day trips from Ljubljana. The article highly recommended Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, touting it as the most beautiful national park in all of Europe. I found the official website for Plitvice Lakes National Park (it is written in the Croatian language, so English speakers will have to have Google translate it into English) and it appeared to be every bit as gorgeous as the article had implied. The park is about a three-hour drive from Ljubljana. You can get there by bus, or a combination of train and bus, but that takes significantly longer. If you opt for public transportation plan on an extra day, so you can have a full day in the park. We decided to rent a car and drive to the park, so we could make the trip in one day and leave one day free to explore Ljubljana. We will talk about our day in Ljubljana in another post.

It would be hard for any place to live up to the hype of being called the most beautiful national park in all of Europe, but Plitvice Lakes National Park exceeded all expectations. All I can say is Wow, WOW, WOW!!! Xia and I have visited many national parks in the United States and a few other countries, and they are all beautiful in different ways, but Plitvice Lakes rivals any park we have seen anywhere in the world. It is spectacularly beautiful.