Zagreb to Rijeka via Plitvice Lakes: Private One‑Way Tour to Croatia’s Cascading Lakes

The minivan pulls away from Zagreb before dawn and the city’s hum thins into rows of beech and fir. By the time the road climbs into the karst hills, the world has shrunk to a strip of highway and the steady, insistent rush of water that feeds Plitvice’s terraces. At the park gate the group steps into a green, wet air — limestone and moss, the smell of cold water and leaves. Wooden walkways thread across turquoise basins; waterfalls act like punctuation, sometimes a whisper, sometimes a roar.