Croatia 2025 – Day 4 (Rastoke Village and Plitvice Lakes)

Today we loaded up the van with our bags and headed out to Plitvice Lakes, stopping in Rastoke Village for lunch. Before we go any further, here’s how to pronounce Plitvice. (If you don’t want to click the link to hear it spoken, here’s my best attempt at phonetic spelling: PLIT-veetsuh.) Now, on to the details of an amazing day.

Rastoke Village

Rastoke Village is absolutely charming, in an almost fairytale sort of way. It’s known as “the waterfall village” because the village is built on a series of tiny “islands” at the confluence of two rivers with small waterfalls everywhere – including *underneath* parts of the village. The pictures don’t do it justice. Rastoke used to be a miller’s village, which makes sense given the continuous flow of water.

Another waterfall flowing underneath a deck

A waterfall next to the seating area of Petro restaurant

Lunch was delicious, including some very fresh trout. They herd trout into pens to trap them, then fish them out as needed. We ate at Konoba Pod, a lovely tavern with delicious food and, importantly, tables in the sun. There’s a bigger restaurant a short walk down the path, Petro, which has the best views and a more extensive menu, but it was entirely in the shade, and it was a bit chilly.

Trout in a pen in the river, waiting to be served

Plitvice Lakes

After lunch it was off to Plitvice Lakes National Park. It was spectacular, even though we were there at the time of year when the water flow is smallest. In spring, when the snow melts, the waterfalls are much bigger – and so are the crowds!

We spend a few hours hiking in the lower lakes. There are wooden planks over the water, with stairs every so often. It was a little slow going at times, but not too bad. We didn’t go to the upper lakes at all, since all the best falls are in the lower lakes. One thing that you’d never see in the U.S. – there were no railings on the walkways.

One small lake cascading down to another

An old walkway that was damaged and is no longer in use

It was good to have a guide with us, or we never would have known about a somewhat hidden lookout spot that gave us the best views. It’s on one of the roads heading out of the park. Ella and Dražen knew exactly where to to, and the views didn’t disappoint.

View of an upper lake flowing down to a lower lake

Multiple lakes flowing into each other. You can see a walkway on the far right.

There’s aren’t many accommodations in the area, but we found a VRBO that turned out really nice. It had two bathrooms, which was great. The hostess gave us some tomatoes and cucumber from her garden, plus a jar of honey and a bottle of liqueur that was very tasty. Since there were no restaurants in the area, we stopped at a grocery store then cooked pesto pasta with sausage and made a salad back at the VRBO. Tomorrow we head to Split, with a stop along the way.