It’s a place of otherworldly beauty. A sensory overload… Twisted, zigzagging, curled and looped paths meander around, and above lie photogenic turquoise and azure lakes that shimmer like molten glass. As the dramatic falls swirl, tumble and gush under our feet and spray water in our faces, every curve of the walkway reveals even more stunning cascades. In places, the colour of the water is so vivid it looks as if a painter had gone ballistic with his palette. I learn that the colours change constantly, depending on the quantity of minerals or organisms in the water and the angle of sunlight.
I am at the little-known Plitvice National Park in Croatia, a UNESCO site near the border with Bosnia, with 16 terraced lakes linked together with a series of waterfalls and streams. The lakes are famous for their stunning colours. Wooden footbridges and pathways go across the edges of lakes, over rumbling water, and the pathways come very close to the waterfalls. The total distance of the UNESCO site is 18 km.
We trek through the park along trails and follow a map that’s marked with photo stops. The natural ecosystem of the park is preserved as no fishing or swimming is allowed in the lakes, which are split into the Upper and the Lower lakes divided by the Kozjal Lake, where an electric boat ferries you across.
What fascinates me is the primeval Garden of Eden kind of feel of the place. Zillions of species of trees, from silver beech to elm and fir with their leaves in brilliant autumn colours of red and orange, every lake in a different colour, streams of varying ferocity, waterfalls of all sizes.
Our guide tells us that Plitvice became Croatia’s first national park in 1949. Thirty years later, it was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list. On Easter Sunday in 1991, the first shots of Croatia’s war with Yugoslavia were fired right here. The Serbs occupied Plitvice until 1995; today the war is a fading memory, and the park is again a popular tourist destination.
How did this watery wonderland form? Water flowing over limestone and chalk created a system of caves and waterfalls. The lakes took shape only 12,000 years ago—mere moments ago in geological terms—when subterranean rivers flowed out of the hills and began depositing limestone to form natural dams.
Near the beginning of the Lower Lakes trails, we visit the Big Waterfall (Veliki Slap). This is one of the biggest waterfalls in the park where the Plitvica River plunges 250 feet over a cliff into a valley. There are stories and legends everywhere in Plitvice. The Gypsy Lake is where a gypsy drowned, and on the island in the middle of Stephanie’s Lake, farmers used to protect their goats from wolves. The name originates from a legend, according to which 30 young goats were running away from wolves during winter. They drowned in the lake as the thin ice layer cracked.
At the far side of the lake is a spectacular stretch trail where the water is so clear that I can see the fallen sticks, branches, coins, and fish on the bottom of the pool. Florescent green lizards scuttle on tree trunks as I watch for the park’s fabled wildlife. It claims to host deer, wolves, wildcats, lynxes, wild boars, otters and more than 160 species of birds. Plitvice is also home to about 50 highly endangered European brown bears.
At the end of the day we reach our end point cold and tired, from where an electric bus brings us back to the gate. I go to bed dreaming of overwhelming beauty and emerald streams and ethereal waterfalls, a watery world that I don’t want to wake up from.