We are spending a few days in Ljubljana before our bike/sail trip out of Trogir. We have two days where we would like to see Plitvice Lakes National Park on our way to Trogir. My question is two-fold. The cost of renting a car out of Ljubljana is about the same as doing each leg with a driver (quote from daytrip.com) I did look into taking the Go Opti shuttle to Zagreb and renting a car there to drop off of Trogir. which is significantly cheaper. This would allow us a night in Plitvice Lakes. I have read mixed reviews on whether its worth it to spend the night in Plitvice Lakes. But I'm not sure if its worth the extra time to get to Zagreb to do that, or would it just be easier to do the driver.
there is an option with the driver to do Ljubljana to Trogir in one day with a 2 hour stop in Plitvice - but is this enough time to see the park?
Posted by
Republic of Texas / U.S.A. / Magyarország / Budapest
27499 posts
Spending the night depends on the time of year, maybe the day of the week, how early you are willing to arrive and how long you want to stay. There is some actual data for attendance by season on the internet. If your date numbers is half that of a typical August day and if you were willing to get there at 11am and if you werent going to march the planks for more than 3 or 4 hours then I would be inclided to make a day trip out of it. Many, many, many others will disagree with me. I went in July at 10:30am about 5 years ago and I was fine with it. The crowds were benind us but I was happy to leave after 3 hours so they never caught us. Plitvice is no longer in my definition of fun.
Posted by
Chicago
1497 posts
In my opinion, if you want to see the entirety (or at least a lot) of the park, 2
hours is not remotely close to enough. You could probably walk along the
upper path and see the lakes from above, get back into the car, and keep
going, but that's about it.
As Mr E implies, if you can stretch the stopover into 3, but better 4, hours,
and saving the overnight is important to your plan, then it could work.
You will see in multiple posts about the additional costs of renting a car in
one country and returning it in another. So from that perspective, the idea
of going to Zagreb and renting a car is a good one.
I did not do this, but it's been said in many posts on the forum that if you stay
at the Hotel Jezero, you can buy a 1 day ticket and they will validate it for a
second day, and this is a way to avoid the largest of the crowds by going in
the later afternoon hours after you arrive and then the morning after, and then
head to Trogir.
I think it depends on the season and day of the week you plan to potentially
be there as well.
Posted by
Republic of Texas / U.S.A. / Magyarország / Budapest
27499 posts
June: 200,000 – 250,000 visitors.
July & August: 300,000 – 370,000 each
May & September: under 200,000 visitors per month.
April & October: 50,000 – 100,000 each
November to March: Negligible traffic, averaging roughly 10,000 – 25,000 visitors per month.
We got on a path, dont remember which, and it was marked 3 hours, which is what it took. You would have to research a 4 hour hike and the park has a good website with it all layed out.