Gallery: Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia (Summer 2010) (where I fell in love with waterfalls)
the first installment of my photo galleries
I’ve decided to start regular “Gallery” posts of my many travel pictures. This first installment covers Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, which i visited in the summer of 2010. I hope you enjoy! Please consider subscribing to receive future gallery posts right when they are released! Thank you so much for your support!
all photos my own (Summer 2010)
Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
What makes this park so special? Plitvice Lakes is composed of a series of lakes elevated at different heights and connected to one another by waterfalls while boardwalks wind between the lakes for exploring tourists to take in all the beauty. And what makes Plitvice Lakes so special to me is that it was here where I fell in love with waterfalls and ended up spending years seeking them out elsewhere.
So it’s obvious why I loved Plitvice Lakes so much. For so many years now, waterfalls have been among my favorite sites when I’m traveling, and Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia is full of them. As I said, Plitvice Lakes was probably the place where I first fell in love with waterfalls: before then I hadn’t traveled as much to the waterfalls I would later see in places like Oregon, Upstate New York, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I’d seen massive waterfalls by then in Iceland and Niagara, but I’d never seen anything like the interlinking complex of waterfalls at Plitvice Lakes.
So Plitvice Lakes just swept me off my feet, like love at first sight. And of course it’s not just short waterfalls at Plitvice Lakes; there are some massive ones as well.
So you can hike up to excellent viewpoints that show the lakes interlinked by waterfalls below. But you can also get down to the lower levels and just be right there at the base of them, walking between two lakes but unable to see the second lake since a beautiful waterfall is obstructing your view.
I was traveling alone during this visit, but I had a companion with me from the hostel who was able to take several pictures of me crouching down in front of the waterfalls, some of them short, some of them taller, all of them connecting this series of lakes.
When I was there, taking the winding boardwalks between these lakes and waterfalls, I was mesmerized by the clear water and its leafy reflections. Often I could see logs resting at the bottom while fish swam closer to the surface.
There’s always been something about water to me.
One true perspective I shared during these last several months was how valuable I think it is to spend time near the water. Like rivers, waterfalls are always changing: within moments of looking at a waterfall, you’re effectively looking at a different waterfall, as the water is continuously flowing and the molecules composing the waterfall are never exactly the same from one moment to the next.
Maybe that’s why I decided to do my first gallery post about Plitvice Lakes. Being near waterfalls reminds me that I am not static, that I can change, that I don’t have to always be the same person. Waterfalls remind me of reality’s fundamental flow. Thinking about waterfalls helps me remember that the present is impermanent and that I don’t need to be the person I have been at my worst.
Every time I’ve seen a waterfall anywhere else, my mind has gone back to Plitvice Lakes in Crotatia, the site where I fell in love with waterfalls. And ever since visiting Plitvice Lakes I’ve found myself gravitating toward waterfalls wherever I travel. The sheer number of waterfalls and lakes at Plitvice Lakes is pleasantly overwhelming, and I found myself constantly wanting to linger for as long as possible at certain viewpoints. I would love the opportunity one day to return to this amazing place.
What are your favorite waterfall destinations? Drop one in the comments!
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