Venice to Plitvice National Park, Croatia, April 27

Today we traveled in 4 countries:  Italy, Trieste, Slovenia and Croatia.  We did not stop, although tempted, in Trieste.
  We traveled about 40 miles in Slovenia on back roads.  I looked, but did not find post cards for Henry and Otis.  We did stop at a Tus Market and got sandwich fixings and had a picnic.  Then, we drove, partly on motorway and partly on a two lane road to the center of Croatia to this national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We had temperature fluctuations today, with a high of 24 C to a low of 12C.  We are staying in a Sobe, or B & B here, House Ana, which has 5 modest rooms.  It is €60 per night including breakfast. The currency
is the kuna which is worth about 17 cents.

It was raining when we arrived around 3:30, but it stopped and we went to find information about the park and took a little drive, looking at the Korana River gorge and waterfalls.

 We took a little, tiny side road into a little town, Smoljanac.  (J is pronounced as a Y and C as TS). We are in an area which saw intense fighting as it is a border area.  Croats are mostly Catholic, but there were a lot of Orthodox Serbs here.  In WW II, the Croats sided with the Nazis, hoping for independence and thousands of Serbs were killed in concentration camps.  In the 1990s, when the Croats fought for independence, the first shots of the Serbs, trying to prevent the secession happened right here in this park.  Many Croats were killed.  The Serbs controlled the area for 4 years and the park was closed.  During that time, many Croats were killed and villages destroyed.  Then, when the Croats Gaines independence, many Serbs fled and their churches burned and land lost.  Most have not returned.  In the little town, we read that 15 were killed, we presumed Croat and saw a memorial. It made the war feel very real and very recent.