Plitvice Lakes
Sixteen lakes that are still moving, because the water that makes them turns to stone
- When to go
- October 13° · 10 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 90 km Zadar · 91 km Rijeka
- Right now
Plitvice are a chain of basins built by travertine — lime deposited out of the water onto moss and branches until it becomes a barrier. The landscape genuinely changes because of it: the falls move, and the park stays a process rather than a fixed picture.
The paths are wooden, narrow and mostly one-way, and that shapes the whole day. Entry is by timed slot at one of two gates, and the routes are lettered; the shortest takes about two hours, the longest a full day. Arrive at midday in high summer and you will spend a good part of it waiting for the people in front of you — before nine, the park is a different place.
Two things to know in advance: swimming is not allowed anywhere in the park, in any lake, and it is enforced; and the boat across Kozjak and the panoramic train are included in the ticket but run to their own timetable, with their own queues. Veliki Slap, about 78 metres high, sits at the end of the lower route, and that is where the crowd collects.
Guides for Plitvice Lakes
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Plitvice Lakes in 1 day
→One day, but the route decides everything — the short trail takes about two hours, the long one the whole day, and both…
What to see in Plitvice Lakes
Veliki Slap
The park's tallest waterfall, about 78 metres. It sits at the end of the lower route, where the crowd is thickest at any hour.
€10 winter · €23 spring/autumn · €40 summer (by 4pm) / €25 (after) · booking: timed slot
The lower lakes
A canyon with wooden walkways just above the water. The shorter route, and what most people actually come to see.
€10 winter · €23 spring/autumn · €40 summer (by 4pm) / €25 (after)
The upper lakes
Wider, calmer and less busy. This is where you see travertine building the barriers, because the falls are lower and closer.
€10 winter · €23 spring/autumn · €40 summer (by 4pm) / €25 (after)
The boat across Kozjak
The largest lake is crossed by a boat included in the ticket. The timetable is fixed, so the plan is built around it.
included in the ticket · closed off-season, roughly Nov–Mar/Apr (weather and ice dependent)
- T
The panoramic train
A shuttle linking the entrances and the upper park, moving the starting point for the walk.
included in the ticket · closed off-season, roughly Nov–Mar/Apr; runs a reduced schedule when it does (weather dependent)
Rastoke
A village fifteen kilometres north where the Slunjčica falls between the houses themselves. A good addition if half a day is left.
€5 (adult)
Two things you probably did not know
The barriers between the lakes are not rock but travertine, stone that moss and algae build by depositing lime from the water. They grow about a centimetre a year, so the lakes are still forming. In a hundred years the layout will differ.
The German Winnetou westerns were filmed here in the nineteen sixties, with Plitvice and Velebit standing in for the Wild West. The films were watched so widely that Germans and Austrians came for decades to see America.
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