Visiting Croatia - Nationalpark Krka

Tuesday 16th of August: After a nice breakfast on the roof terrace of Hotel Vila Liza in Trogir we are on the road again. We manage to get up and away quite early this morning as this time we want to visit something on our way up direction Germany. We are at first undecided between Krka National park or National park Plitvice Lakes, however decide then to go for Krka.

This area is well known for the movie Treasure of Silver Lake, a Movie about the Apache Winnetou and his friend Old Shatterhand, very popular novels of Karl May. Karl May was a very popular German author who lived from 1842–1912 and is one of the best selling German writers of all time.

We get to the Park easy and with no problems. You get to the National park by passing through a nice little village with cute sandstone houses that are typical for the area. When you reach the harbour you will find the boats which leave every 30 Minutes to various directions. From there you can head to a Franciscan monastery and have a walk there, or you can stop at Roski Slap which is located around the downstream from the source of the River Krka, or you can go to the Krka Monastery and the fortresses of Trosenj and Necven.

As we bought the tickets in the tourist enter, the ladies were totally amazed that we made it all the way from Ireland to here. They, so they said, really love the Irish and told us very proudly that "The Edge" of U2 was visiting the National Park also 2 years ago. My husband does not look like The Edge, neither are we that famous nor rich however we feel very honoured and happy about that comparison :) On the website I have seen that we just missed Jon Bon Jovi about a week. He was there at 08.08.2011.

We could have spent the whole day here, there is just SO much to see, the landscape is so beautiful and stunning however we only made it to the famous waterfalls. When we got there it was totally overcrowded. Access to the waterfalls could only be made over a little bridge which was nearly impossible to pass. Not to mention with a buggy and baby in it. Everybody wanted to take a picture of themselves with the waterfalls in the background so this is blocking one lane of the bridge totally and you cannot move. Lots of visitors are bathing in the little stream and also try to get there through the only access – the tiny bridge. It was nearly a bit too much for us all and I find it not really enjoyable when there are too many visitors.

As the walkway cannot be crossed that easily with a buggy we decided that always one of us stays with the child while the other one is exploring the area a bit and is taking pictures of the waterfalls and its surroundings. However after 30 Minutes we had enough… we just wanted peace and quiet and tried to leave…. Well, first we had to wait for a boat coming back and at the end we were queuing longer for the boat back and to the waterfalls than the time we actually spent there.

On the road again we decide to give our friend TomTom (our Navigation System) another chance. Maybe he has a few hotels we might be able to use and hopefully we will not have another disaster again when looking for hotels in Austria (see my article). He shows us a hotel directly beside the Croatian Highway and we can already see it coming off the highway: Hotel Europa in Karlovac

Thankfully there were no unexpected surprises, only nice ones. The room is great, the food even better and our car is safe at the parking lot behind the hotel.

We have to praise our Toddler again who was such a great sport on this trip. It was a long day but he did not whinge or cry and it seems that he knows he will see his grandparents and cousins again shortly. He must know by now as well that we are stopping regularly, we let him run and play and after a while when he has enough he is even climbing back into his seat again all by himself.

In the hotel we have great reception on the Baby phone and have a great meal. Just the two of us with lovely Croatian red wine. Life is wonderful.

Our Travelroute today: 350km