Plitvice Lake National Park reminded me of Jiuzhaigou in China. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, it covers approx. 300 sq. km of forest reserve on Central Croatia. The park is made famous because of a series of lakes formed by nature in cascades. There are sixteen lakes linked by a series of small rivers and streams as well as subterranean rivers. Similar to Jiuzhaigou, these lakes are famous for their colour, ranging from azure to green, blue or grey. The colour of the water changes constantly depending on mineral content, organism and angle of the sunlight.
The Park now boasts of a million visitors a year. Clearly, its facilities are unable to cope with the huge influx of visitors. On the day of our visit on 15 September, we had to forego taking the boat to cross the lake because of a waiting time of between one to one and half hours. In the end, we decided to walk and trek a hill to catch the bus instead. The peak daily 15,000 visitors is nothing compared to what Jiuzhaigou is handling. Still, the park under the urging of UNESCO is hoping to limit the crowd to just 8,000 a day. That will be definitely bad news for Croatia's tourism but welcome by nature conservationists!
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Timber-decked walkways allow visitors to have access to
the heart of this nature wonder to appreciate its beauty. |
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