Being geographically challenged, Mr G and I hadn’t heard of the Plitvice Lakes. We saw pictures of the extraordinary network of otherworldly coloured lakes and waterfalls and thought they were a real undiscovered gem. I’d imagined the two of us kayaking alone on the limpid azure waters. Naïve numpties. It’s true that the Plitvice National Park is a stunning natural phenomenon- but it’s about as undiscovered as Lake Windemere on a sunny August bank holiday. 

It turns out that, when it comes to Plitvice, us, the Croatian tourist board, UNESCO and a GAZILLION tourists from across the globe are in the know. Luckily it is a slickly run tourist attraction. There’s timed entry tickets, carefully maintained paths, colour coded hiking routes, immaculate cafes, and electric boats and trains to shuffle you between locations. If Disney did lakes in Croatia, this is what they’d aspire to. 

At the beginning it felt like we were shuffling in single file, with chaos ensuing whenever anyone paused to take a selfie. However, we chose one of the longer hiking routes and pretty soon, we were away from the madding crowd and able to soak up the scenery. The carefully managed tourism has some real benefits- there was absolutely no rubbish and the natural environment was beautifully preserved. Definitely worth a visit, hidden gem or not. 

Big waterfalls, small tourist

Quick campsite comment: 

We stayed at Camping Plitvice, a very smart resort three miles from the national park. 

The good bits: It’s brand new and IMMACULATE. It’s less like a campsite and more like a hotel with pitches. There’s a gorgeous swimming pool, bar, excellent restaurant and fabulous shower facilities. It is by far the poshest campsite I’ve ever seen. 

The bad bits: It’s expensive. Very. At €48 a night it’s double the average campsite price so far. It’s also next door to a building site ( I suspect they’re extending the site) and we were rudely awoke by a jack hammer attempting to break through the rocky sub soil. Me, Mr G and the van are all covered by a fine dusting of limestone- but it’s heritage limestone so that’s OK.