A new Wonder of the World? Plitvice Lakes: Croatia
Of the original 7 Wonders of the World, only one remains, the Great Pyramids in Egypt. There are plenty of other lists, if you’re looking to tick some wonders off your bucket list. A quick Google search reveals:
- Conde Nast Traveller’s 2017 Wonders of the World list
- The New 7 Wonders of the World as voted by travellers from all over the world
- The World’s Top Most Top 10 (so many issues with this…not least because they include the Leaning Tower of Pisa which would struggle to make my Top 50)
Those of us fortunate enough to travel far and wide know there are dozens of wonders of the world, but at the same time, there are probably only a handful of places you can truly put on your awe-inspiring list. The ones that are difficult to put into words. That truly tap into your sense of being a small speck in the universe, in the scheme of time and space. That a camera can never do justice…especially not one in the hands of an amateur like me! Whilst the photos in the body of this post are my own, I have chosen one by Jack Bauer for the main photo to try and convey this place sufficiently!
Wonder and awe.
In the original senses of the words, not the overused wonderful and awesome varieties.
Plitvice Lakes National Park should be firmly on any of these lists. It’s a reasonably accessible place, only a few hours from Split, Dubrovnik or Zagreb. It is well established in terms of tourism and services. Its primary issue is the same as Dubrovnik’s – it’s getting too popular. Visitor numbers are sure to be limited soon – a move I would support for the greater protection of such a special place.
I visited on a rainy, early September day. I went early, when the gates opened at 7am, and my car was one of only a handful in the car park. When I went to pick it up at around 2pm, the place was heaving with people and cars searching for a parking space.
There are a number of options in terms of exploring the park. Ferries and scenic trains run from various points to reduce the walking for those with mobility issues or without much time. If you are reasonably fit and healthy, I would really recommend Circuit K from either Entrance 1 or 2. I started at Entrance 2, simply because I was staying in Korenica and it was the closest. It has only one very short ferry ride right at the end of the circuit, the rest you do on foot. For about 4 and a half of the six hours I walked I was alone, running into only a handful of other walkers as we stopped for photos or a drink. No doubt this was partially due to the rain I walked in for the first two hours, but I think it would always be quieter simply because it is a big walk! When you do get to the main areas with boardwalks through the lakes and waterfalls, the people can get pretty overwhelming. And I was there on a very quiet day by all accounts because of the weather.
Top tips
- Try and do Circuit K – 6 hours in total, with a 30 minute coffee and dry out stop and plenty of stops for photos. 31,500 steps, 21km in total. Mainly flat, but with some hills and some sketchy parts when it has been raining. Decent shoes mandatory!
- The Plitvice Lakes National Park website has lots of great information. Try and be a little informed before you get there or the options can make you feel like you might be missing out on something!
- Cafes and restaurants are few and far between and the food is not exactly amazing at most of them, so take a picnic or plan out your food and bathroom stops.
- A day is enough time to see lots of the park if you are prepared to walk. Two would be great if you would prefer to break it up to more manageable distances.
- Don’t be put off if it’s raining, just get a poncho or gear up and walk on!
- There are lots of sobe (B&B type rooms) available so try and stay at least a night if you can in one of the nearby villages. I was just out of Korenica, at Hotel Innes about a 15km drive and it was easy to get to the park and really lovely. Rent a car if you are on the coast and take a couple of days away from the beach.
- The park is really well signed, no need for the detailed map if you’ve got a plan before you start.
And one final thought, replace “supercomputers, rockets and particle accelerators” with “selfie stick” in this quote from Alain de Botton… and yes, that goes for me too.
“For thousands of years, it had been nature–and its supposed creator–that had had a monopoly on awe. It had been the icecaps, the deserts, the volcanoes and the glaciers that had given us a sense of finitude and limitation and had elicited a feeling in which fear and respect coagulated into a strangely pleasing feeling of humility, a feeling which the philosophers of the eighteenth century had famously termed the sublime.
But then had come a transformation to which we were still the heirs…. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the dominant catalyst for that feeling of the sublime had ceased to be nature. We were now deep in the era of the technological sublime, when awe could most powerfully be invoked not by forests or icebergs but by (*selfie sticks) supercomputers, rockets and particle accelerators. We were now almost exclusively amazed by ourselves.”