(Šibenik-Knin County, Croatia)

We woke up early the next morning at the Life Palace Hotel and made our way down to breakfast, which consisted of a lavishly stocked buffet. I headed straight for the smoked salmon, whipped cream cheese, capers and slices of french bread and Grant gathered up fresh fruit and his favorite, pastries.

We were fortunate enough to eat our breakfast in peace as I do believe, we were the only guests booked at the hotel during the “off” season. I’m 90% sure of this fact as we didn’t see a single other guest. This being said, the breakfast was still freshly prepared with a smorgasbord of choices. With stomachs full, we packed up our luggage and headed out to the rental car.

Krka National Park is very close, only 20 minutes drive away from Šibenik, and the entrance is located near a flat, rocky area. So when we drove down into the valley, towards the river, we were surprised to see that we were all of a sudden surrounded by lush forested mountains. The coastal part of Croatia can be pretty arid so this was a nice change. We parked the car and soon realized that this was going to be a blustery, Autumn day and we hadn’t brought warm clothes with us. Our only option at this point was to keep moving. There is a really nice wood plank walkway that takes you over pools of clear, blue water and we soon found ourselves forgetting about how cold we were. The scenery was beautiful.

Krka is famous for its waterfalls and karst river formations called travertines. This landscape is created by limestone deposits that get shaped by moss and algae and starts building on itself which causes the river to change ever so slightly over time. On this day, these karst formations were hard to make out as the river contained much more water volume due to the season, and therefore flooded over. This area is also rich with archaeological structures that date back to prehistory, Roman times, and the industrial revolution with its many modern water mills. A lot of these buildings can only be seen by taking a boat excursion. There are boats that service tourists but they only operate between April and October.

A hydro-power plant near this waterfall was opened in 1895, just a couple of days after the opening of Tesla’s hydroelectric plant at Niagra Falls. Because of this power plant, Šibenik had electricity before many other European cities.

Here’s a video we put together from our day in the park. Also, check out part 2 of this series here.

Updated 20 December 2017 to add video and link to part 2.

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