June 18 - Plitvice Lakes National Park and the HOMELAND

Plitvice Lakes National Park and the HOMELAND

We left Rovinj for about a 3 hour drive to Plitvice (pleet-veet-say) National Park.  It’s a series of 16 cascading lakes with too many waterfalls to count, all inside of a fairly steep canyon.  Our guidebook described it as Niagra Falls inside of the Grand Canyon.  Like many of my previous posts, the pictures do a better job explaining it.  Crystal clear water, with so many waterfalls, and all the lakes were full of fish.  It’s too bad fishing is prohibited there.  

At times, we would be walking along the bank of the lake, but most of the time, we would be walking on man-made boardwalks.  I’d guess over a mile worth of boardwalks, and most of the boardwalks had water rushing underneath them (and sometimes over the top of them).  Just really amazing to be able to walk around all of the lakes and see them up close.  Part of the hike put us on a boat to run up the longest/largest lake.   Just lots of beautiful views – very hard to try to explain it all.  We hiked out of the canyon and hopped on a bus back to our car, and got to say goodbye to the area by taking in some more amazing views from the top of the canyon.

Can you count the fish?

View from the edge - waterfalls right beneath us...

Perfect timing to catch momma duck and duckling.

And then we were on our way to spend the next 5 days in Jen’s ancestral homeland.  The largest city near where her great grandfather grew up is called Karlovac (car-low-vats).  It’s about 45 minutes southwest of Zagreb, the capital.  20 minutes northwest of Karlavac are a few villages where her great grandfather immigrated from.  He lived in a village (17-20 homes) called Ertic (err-teach).  5 kilometers closer to Karlavac is a village called Sopcic Vrh (sop-cheech vur), which means Sopcic Point.  Right as the sun was setting, we arrived at these two villages.  They are way out in the country and remind me a lot of the farmland in the Snoqualmie Valley, but with more rolling hills.  In Ertic, we stopped next to a house and saw that the outside wall had the name of Ivan Sopcic on it.  Jen was pretty much peeing her pants at this point.  It was about 9:30, so we decided not to start trying to talk to people.  That will come tomorrow, but tonight marked the culmination of a lot of work, a lot of money, and a lot of sacrifice (ancestors who left the area, family watching our kids so we can be here, and Jen’s work to find her ancestors and these two villages).  A very surreal experience tonight, as you might imagine, as it’s not every day that you get to visit for the first time the area where your ancestors lived over 150 years ago. 

Sunset as we get close to the villages

Lipnik first - where the parish and cemetery are located

Then Ribnik - where you turn off the main road to head for Sopcic Vrh and Ertic.

WE FOUND IT!

Birthplace of Janko (Henry) Sopcic, Jen's great great grandfather.  His wife, Anna Sopcic, also lived in Ertic when she married Janko.  We think she was born here, but haven't found the records yet.

CAN'T WAIT FOR TOMORROW!