Two days in Rakovica

Yesterday we rented a car and made a 3-hour trip into the heart of the Croatian countryside for a memorable part of the holiday. We arrived at our BNB outside Plitvice National Park (the true destination) and it was exactly as advertised. The 2 bedroom apartment was incredibly cheap, but clean and had everything that we needed. It is also a small local honey operation, complete with Aphytherapy. Essentially you sit in a little room and hook up a breathing apparatus to a busy hive and breathe in a certain way to reap the benefits. It is supposed to be good for the immune system, the longs, etc (as long as you aren't allergic to bees, otherwise catastrophe ensues). I don't think any of our lives were changed, but it will be one of those weird stories from their childhood. We went to dinner down the road and crashed early because we had a 7-8 am entry to the national park.

Plitvice National Park is an insanely beautiful park with pristine turquoise lakes and waterfalls. We elected the 5-mile hike, through boardwalks around the lower lakes, across a massive lake by boat and then a second hike around the upper lakes. The latter were my favorite, not a bad view or picture to be had. We had a picnic lunch and finished much earlier than we thought. We checked our a few options (ziplines, activity parks) but ended up taking Sharon's advice and settled on a rafting trip (after calling to confirm that it was ok for the kids). We signed up for the 3-7 pm trip and grabbed our suits and swim shoes and headed about 20 minutes up the road. We joined 2 families from Norway and one that did not speak any English, put on our helmets and life jackets and drove about 30 minutes to the Mrežnica river. The tour was in raft kayaks and Tige and Hudson went in one, Gid and I in another, and one of the kind Norwegians went with Elliot. The river was clear and cool and the guide was helpful and helped position us for sliding down 9 waterfalls (the 10th we did on our own). We started early by jumping from a 23-foot waterfall and everyone did it! Hudson and Elliot joined brave Gideon and Mom and Dad went over also. Sadly, my Apple watch did not survive the jump and was discovered to be missing about 30 minutes later. Tige's died when we were swimming in Dubrovnik, so this has been a poor showing for Apple watches all around.

Gideon was the laziest partner :) and after we hit the spring-fed freezing cold section he and H swapped boats to help me out at the end. We tumbled down the past few waterfalls and a couple of small rapids and brought the kayaks ashore. It was a super fun spur-of-the-moment way to spend the afternoon. We stopped for dinner at a local spot and found 1 euro ice cream for the drive home. We visited with the owner Brigita and their sweet pup Bella and then went up for showers and bed.Read more