National Parks-Croatia

Croatia nature and beauty

There are eight National Parks in Croatia, four of which on the coast or on the islands. To these we have to add the protected oases, the natural reserves, the innumerable areas of naturalistic and environmental importance, true luxuriant gardens with numerous and rare kinds of plants and animals. A confirmation that in Croatia the nature has a foreground role and that very much is done for the maintenance of the environment. If we look at small islands suspended in a clear sea, at coast lines surrounded by a myriad of islets and rock-cliffs, thick woods with secular trees or to karst regions where water has dug throats and caves, we can see that the natural landscapes compose different pictures, but all of unrepeatable charm and suggestion. In this way the landscape becomes one of the most remarkable characteristics of the Croatia, and, definitely, a further motive for a Croatia vacation.

To enter into the National Parks you must pay a fee. Numerous agencies organize guided excursions by walk or in boat and in many National Parks there is also the possibility to stay in hotels, pensions and rooms.

National Park Risnjak

Its name derives from «ris» – the lynx – that still lives around, together with other protected kinds as the bear, goats and the wild cat. This national park of Risnjak is found in the thick mountainous of the Gorski kotar, the big karst plateau between Slovenia and the Kvarner coast, the most forested region of the whole Croatia, with really extraordinary vegetation, high secular firs up to 45m, and this is one of the motives that has brought to the protection of this area, to a national park created in September of 1953. Of importance is the didactic path – the first one of this type in the parks of the Croatia – that guides a traveller to the discovery of salient and characteristic aspects of this environment.

National Park Brijuni

A small archipelago in front of the Istrian coast formed of two islands and 12 islets with a surface of 36 km. Here the nature shows an entirely handmade appearance, the creation of this luxuriant zoological and botanical garden happened at the end of the 19th century. An industrialist has made it, buying the islands and enriched the local vegetation with exotic and rare plants to create a place of aristocratic and exclusive vacation. The park became in the period between the two wars an exclusive shelter for international elite tourism. There are many archaeological rests of the Roman and Byzantine periods. Indeed a unique environment, in which deers, bucks, peacocks, pheasants and a particular kind of mouflons walk around in liberty. The Brijuni islands are a National Park since 1983. The daily visitors to the Park have to enter in groups which departure from Fasana (frequent in the summer; one per day in the other periods of the year).

National Park Plitvička jezera

16 karst lakes connected among them with an innumerable number of falls, streams and jumps of water. A complex system of trails that unties on well indicated paths, to which are added suspended on the water wood bridges and passages. With a broad surface of around 30 000 hectares, the greatest part of which covered by woods of beech trees, red and white firs, maples and pines, the national Park of the lakes of Plitvice is indeed a show of the nature, both thanks to the particularity of the environment as to the rich fauna (bears, wolves, foxes, roes, wild boars, rates, otters and 156 kinds of birds). Created in 1949, it is the oldest among the national parks of the Croatia; in 1979 Unesco has registered it in the list of the Word Natural Heritage.

National Park Paklenica

Established in 1949, comprehends an area of 36 km, situated between the highest peak of the Velebit (Vaganski vrh m 1757), the widest mountainous chain of the Croatia and the coast. Characteristic of the park are the two throats, 400 m deep, with impressive erosive phenomenon, caves and walls of rock. In dense woods of beech tree and black pine live numerous kinds of mammals, with some exemplars of bears; among the many kinds of birds that
populate the park it is signalled the presence of the rare snout. Anić kuk, a wall of rock of over 400 meters, the most famous ‘gym’ for the alpinists in Croatia, that can with favourable climate climb here in every month of the year.

National Park Kornati

100 islands with islets of white rock. Established in 1980 to protect many kinds of flora and sea fauna, the national Park of the islands Kornati, rightly famous for the extraordinary beauty of the sea, the coral ground and a still uncontaminated nature. in the greater islands there are only few isolated houses and small villages, a choice that safeguards these islands from the often harmful assaults of the mass tourism. Point of departure for the visit of the national Park of the Kornati is Murter; many coast hotels organize excursions with private or fishermen boats.

National Park Krka

In the county of Šibenik a river, perhaps the most beautiful of the whole Dalmatia, has dug its way in a karst terrain. To make itself a way toward the sea it has created a long, fascinating canyon, with lakes, rapids and falls. The most famous is that of Skradin that falls from a barrier of high tuff. With 142 km of surface, the park of the river Krka is also an important ornithological reserve, that boasts over 200 different kinds of birds. Inside the park, visit able also in boat, there is the historic city of Skradin and, on the island of Visovac, an ancient Franciscan convent.

National Park Mljet

A particularly luxuriant flora and, above all, the particular conformation of this island have brought to the creation of the Park of the island of Mljet. Inside is the Malo jezero and the Veliko jezero – the Small and the Great lake – connected among them and with the see. With its woods of old pines, oaks that surround the lakes and they stretch toward Mljet one of the greenest among the islands of the Croatian Adriatic. On a little island of the Veliko jezero rises an ancient Benedictine convent, turned into the hotel. In summer, a lot of daily excursions depart from Dubrovnik.

North Velebit

Established in 1999 is a particular world biosphere reserve inside a long mountainous chain. Croatian mountaineers consider this area the greatest gem among the Croatian mountains.