Photos from visiting Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, during the early winter offseason.

Plitvice Lakes is cold during the offseason, but the benefit is the crowds are much, much smaller. I can’t imagine this place during summer — I bet it’s a zoo. Check out some photos past the jump:

These huge maps greet you as you enter the park. Due to heavy snow at the time of our visit, we were unable to see the upper lakes (on the left side of both maps). Still, the lower lakes provided more than enough spectacular scenery to satisfy us for a day.

To get from the entrance to the big waterfalls on the lower lakes, you have to take a ferry. The ferry is free (included in your entrance fees), and comes with a decent frequency. The ferry runs less often in the offseason, but you still never have to wait longer than thirty minutes for a ferry. Be warned — the crossing can be cold!

The Dreaded Plitvicka Bus Stop

After a long day exploring the lower lakes and waterfalls, my traveling companion and I headed back to the bus stop to catch our transit back to Zagreb. Unfortunately, as we hadn’t received an exact time to catch our return bus, we ended up waiting at this bus stop for three hours.

The trees across from the bus stop WERE pretty… until the sun went down

Staring longingly down the road to Zagreb…

When we got a little exhausted with all the waiting, we decided to go explore this nearby village. Check out this cute path through the forest!

A pretty bad picture of the village near Plitvicka.

Been waiting three hours… all out of cigarettes… and it’s starting to get cold.

Make sure you know when your return bus is supposed to arrive! We waited at this station for so long… buses kept coming by, stopping, and refusing to let us board because they were from different companies. Felt like Waiting for Godot. A funny experience, in a way. I might write a story about waiting for that bus, someday…

But for today, just enjoy the pictures!