National Park Hopping From Zadar, Croatia

After a painfully early flight we arrived in the small city of Zadar at around 11am! We were staying at a nice new hostel just outside the main city so it was about a 30 min walk into town but we weren’t really complaining (well, the blisters from my new Haviana’s weren’t happy) about the gorgeous coastal walk!

Zadar, like many European cities, has an old town and new town and usually the old town is the best part of the city to go exploring. We headed off in this direction and soon found ourselves in a car free, pedestrian only section of the city – so nice to not have to dodge cars! We walked through the white cobblestoned (and quite slippery) streets past heaps of cute cafes and souvenir stores and soon stumbled upon St Donat’s Church and Bell Tower, the main Cathedral in Zadar. 

Michael had read about the great views from the top of the bell tower so we decided to head up. When we went to pay for our entrance (10 kuna = $2 AUD) we only had large notes, he didn’t want to give us change so he let us in half price, score! He also told us we should use the money we had saved to buy an ice cream – which we did!

Michael's panaorama pictures of the views!

Strangely enough the doorway onto the viewing platform was so small that Michael hit his head trying to go through it, yet the balcony of the viewing platform was so tall that I couldn't even see over it!

 Turns out that what Michael had read was correct, as we walked up through the bells (thankfully they weren’t due to start ringing…) and onto a viewing platform we were greeted with 360 degree views of this cute little city. From here we were able to see the main port of Zadar and the entire length of the Old Town.

Below: the Zadar Cathedral and Bell Tower and the bells.

On one side of the harbor is the old town featuring small buildings with red or brown roofs and on the other side, connected by a bridge is the new town, featuring high rise buildings and grey/white cement (bottom set of photos, top right - you can see the distinct difference between the old and new towns).

  

After spending a while taking in the views we decided to walk along the promenade, I really liked this area as the bright white cobblestones made the water look even bluer than it already was. 

We quite literally stumbled upon the Zadar Sea Organ – this is a completely natural sea organ which is a series of pipes that are built into the sea wall along the promenade so that the movement of wind and sea water produces musical notes, similar to that of an organ. Hence it’s an organ that is played by the sea. We heard it before we saw it and sat down to have a listen, it was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced! We watched so many other passersby who, like us, heard it before they knew what was happening!

Above: Michael standing and sitting at the site of the Sea Organ.

Almost right next door is The Greeting to the Sun – another really interesting design along the Zadar promenade. The Greeting to the Sun is a giant circular series of solar panels built into the ground that use solar powered light panels to create a light show that can be seen at night. 

 Both this and the Sea Organ were created by the same architect, who I must say has been very original in creating really cool designs that aren’t seen anywhere else in the world.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the Zadar Old Town before heading home to sleep!

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The next morning we headed off to Krka National Park – something I have been dreaming of for years. Three buses later we finally arrived.

I will start by saying it was absolutely everything I had expected! We were pretty much surrounded by the most beautiful, almost glowing, blue crystal clear water within 5 minutes of entering the park. 

The park has a huge board walk that stretches for about 2km around the park; we followed this and were surrounded by gorgeous blue pools of water and small waterfalls.

The below photo is overlooking one of the main pools/waterfalls in Krka - it's hard to believe but the water really was this blue!

The park is also home to cute little blue dragon flies – took me ages to get a photo when one was actually standing still as they all we could see most of the time was tiny bright blue things buzzing around.

So many gorgeous blue pools!

Finally after walking through endless beautiful blue pools of water that we desperately wanted to jump into, we arrived at the Skrandinski Buk Falls, which you can swim in!

The waterfalls were absolutely breathtaking!

We wasted no time in stripping down to our bathers to go for a swim in these gorgeous waterfalls, unfortunately it wasn’t as easy as it sounds as we had to climb over a lot of sharp rocks to get into the water but it cool and refreshing and I enjoying just sitting watching the stunning waterfalls.

As you can see Michael thoroughly enjoyed cooling off. 

  

We spent several hours chilling in the water and then lying in the sun to dry off (and eating seeds that I had accidentally bought, thinking they were nuts – whoops!).

We then said goodbye to the amazing Skrandinski Buk Falls and headed towards the exit of the park. 

We were spoilt for choice, with plenty of aerial views of beautiful waterfalls leading down towards Skrandinski Buk Falls – we even watched some crazy guy jump from the top of the waterfall into the water, I’m guessing he has done that before but he still looked crazy!

So many stunningly gorgeous waterfalls!

Michael's panorama showing the set of waterfalls that eventually leads down to a huge blue river that travels throughout the whole National Park. 

 The below waterfall is the first in a serious that lead down to Skrandinski Buk Falls - I am not even sure of it's name anymore but it was so beautiful!

Krka Lakes is one of the most stunning National Parks I have ever been fortunate enough to visit, the blue water and the gorgeous waterfalls are something that has to be seen to be believed and aren’t like anything else I have ever seen before: spectacular!

We jumped on a bus home and somehow must have still been buzzing because we decided to head back to the Old Town of Zadar for some food and to suss out the night time views of this city. 

The sunset from the promenade was beautiful, the moon bounced off the water and it didn’t even look real! I tried to take a short video while we were sitting by the Sea Organ and watching the sunset – hopefully you get the gist of the Sea Organ even though it sounds kinda average from my iPhone video.

We also wanted to check out the Greeting to the Sun by night, which is amazing! Every solar panel lights up and creates an amazing light show, all powered by solar energy! We felt like we were at an outdoor disco – there were so many people there to check it out!

  

After almost a week of very early morning get ups (those of you who know Michael will know that they are not his favourite…) it was time for some much needed RnR! 

 We topped the day off with an amazing picnic feast on some rocks that jutted out from the coast, overlooking the ocean. As you can see it was compelte with makeshift picnic blanket (aka. towel) and camping cutlery!

While there is not much else to write about, it’s safe to say that our rest day was a huge success =)

On our final day in Zadar we were headed to Plitvice National Park – as it turns out Krka was my favourite of the two, while Plitvice was Michael’s favourite.

We awoke to rain, thunder and lightning.

Delightful.

We decided to soldier on anyway as we had been looking forward to this visit. The entire bus trip there it rained, we were kind of dreading what the day would bring. We sort of struck it lucky though because after about 15 mins in the park the rain eased off and we were also to spend most of the day exploring in patching sunshine and only light rain showers.

These waterfalls are one of the first views you see when you walk into the park, pretty good first impression!

Michael (below) at the 'Big Waterfalls' - yep that was literally the name!

Plitvice had the same amazingly clear, stunning blue water but the lakes were HUGE! At some points we felt like we were surrounded by beautiful blue water as far as they eye could see. 

The boardwalk was literally right on top of the water, you can see in the set of photos below (photo bottom right) my feet about about 30cm away from one of the waterfalls!

Visitors aren’t allowed to swim at Plitvice, so in a way the colder rainy weather wasn’t too bad because at least we weren’t desperate to jump in!

 We also did some cave exploration and got kinda lost so ended up going in a bit of a circle, whoops!

We walked for several hours, around and over many huge blue lakes.

It was hard to stop taking photos, it was all too gorgeous for words!

An aerial view of the boardwalk we walked over! Amazing!

The water is indescribable. It is ridiculously blue and so clear that you can see all the fish swimming in it (I swear I haven't photoshopped these pictures!)

We then came to a part of the park that was filled with forest and wooded type areas, they were so green and gorgeous, and I love the smell of the bush! In some areas all the autumn leaves were still on the ground so the whole area was covered with bright red fallen leaves and the trees with new green ones!

I'm loving the autumn leaves in the above photo!

I'm loving the autumn leaves in the above photo!
These wooded paths opened up to more huge blue lakes (I think I have run out of adequate adjectives to describe how amazing they looked) and also some very gorgeous waterfalls.

Definnitely glad we braved the morning rains to see this incredible park! 

  

All in all, despite the morning downpour our trip to Plitvice Lakes was a huge success, Michael says it was his favourite trip from Zadar.

So far we are loving Croatia, I’m not sure if it can beat Portugal as our favourite country but it is certainly giving it a fair crack and ticking some very big boxes! We will be spending the next week or so traveling south through this amazing country so there will definitely be more updates to come!