Plitvice Lakes National Park

We are borrowing these words verbatim from the marketing and sales department of the park. It described the park better than we could and it explains a little of the geology and hydrology of the park.

The Plitvice Lakes National Park is the oldest and largest national park in the Republic of Croatia, famous for its numerous turquoise-colored lakes separated by tufa, or travertine, barriers. Its karst landscape is characterized by specific hydrological traits and exceptional biological diversity, which helped the National Park gain international significance.

The specific hydrogeological properties of the Park’s rocks have enabled the retention of water on the dolomite rocks and resulted in the water cutting canyons in the limestone deposits. For that reason, the lake system is divided into the Upper and Lower lakes. Today’s appearance of the lake system is a result of the tufa formation process, which created the barriers. It is an exceptionally complex and sensitive biodynamic process dependent on numerous ecological factors. The fact that the process is still ongoing tells us that the environmental factors remain intact. 

There are 16 larger lakes plus many smaller lakes, separated with water flowing through the travertine into the next, lower lake. The highest waterfall is 78 meters or over 250 feet.

Since words don’t do it justice, we’ll let the pictures do the talking. But a quick summary of the day:

  • -          310 kilometers to get there back
  • -       Over 21,000 steps in the park
  • -          500+ photos
  • -          Thousands of oohs and ahs and gasps and dropped jaws, not counting fears of our next step
  • -          Hundreds of steps over wooden bridges with water rushing underneath,
  • -          Multiple events of standing on the edge of a deep cavern,
  • -          Waterfalls in sheets, streams, and dribbles, and
  • -          Two happy but tired puppies when we got back to our apartment.




















































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