The boat pulled out of Sibenik early this morning. Our destination was the small town of Skradin, the gateway to Krka National Park. You can see both places on the map below.
The river Krka — pronounced “KIR kuh” — forms an remarkably large estuary. Going from the upper right of the map, near Skradin, the river flows into Lake Prokljan. From there is flows down into the Bay of Sibenik and through the Saint Anthony Channel into the Adriatic Sea, in the bottom left of the map. The area just beyond Skradin is not navigable, and this area now forms the national park. The park, famous for its many waterfalls, is one of the most popular tourist sites in Croatia. Somehow, from the best can discover, it is one of the few places in Dalmatia that has never been used in an episode of Game of Thrones.
As we sailed up the river, the scenery reminded me a lot of the dry lands of western Oregon and Washington.
The water here is mostly fresh, though close to the bottom there is a layer or cold, salt water. Because of this, the area is ideal growing mussels and other forms of aquaculture.
When the boat arrived in Skradin, Marin and Lucy gave us tickets to the national park and put us on a small park shuttle boat. After a short ride further up the river, we entered the park. We did not have to walk far before we saw the main attraction of the park, its waterfalls.
Now, these are not nearly as impressive as the great waterfalls of California. But they are still interesting. The primary rock here is not granite, like California, but limestone. There are substantial deposits of travertine, and apparently some tufa formations as well. The soft stone has eroded into hundreds of small channels, each with its falls and pools. At the base of the lower falls, they allow visitors to swim in the warm water and John was happy to take advantage of this policy.
There is a path around the area providing various viewpoints for different parts of the falls. One of the most famous is the belvedere built for the visit of the Franz Joseph I, one of the last of the Austro-Hungarian Emperors. John impersonated his highness
while I took advantage of his special platform.
And it is a great view.
As we walked around, we looked at various exhibits such as the reconstruction of the old mill town. There is also the remains of the world’s second hydroelectric power plant here. Apparently Nikola Tesla, an ethnic Serb who was born and raised in Croatia, was involved in building this.
We admired the huge variety of fish and insect life in and around the small pools.
It was not possible, however, for me to a a picture of the brilliant flue dragonflies fluttering about.
Less enchanting were the crowds. By eleven o’clock the place seemed mobbed. There were large tour groups following leaders with flags. I had no idea where they had come from. Did they arrive here on a day trip from a cruise? We decided to head back to the boat even though we still had about an hour left. We briefly explored the town of Skradin. It is an ancient settlement, though most of the buildings look like they were constructed some time in the late nineteenth century.
Around 1:00 o’clock, as we were eating lunch, the boat pulled out of Skradin, headed toward Vodice. We were originally supposed to ride our bikes between these cities and have the boat meet us there, but we had to change our schedule because of a problem with the dock where they normally under unload the bikes. I did not completely follow the explanation, though I was a bit disappointed.
We arrived in Vodice about an hour and a half later. It is a really cute little town, apparently mostly a summer place for mostly Croatian tourists. In the afternoon, our group went on a short bike ride. We went along the waterfront for about 3 miles. That did not seem like enough for many of us, so Marin and Lucy proposed talking us down some unpaved roads to see the ruins of a 6th century church.
It was an lovely ride for about a mile or so through fields laced with dry stone walls. It looked like this area had once had many olive trees, few looked under active cultivation. Wispy pine trees were growing among the walled field. It was desolate, yet beautiful.
We found the ruins of a double basilica. Nobody is completely sure why there were two churches directly adjacent to one another. There was good signage about the site in both Croatian and English. I copied this areal photo from one of the signs as it gives a better sense of the ruins than my picture does.
On the way back my bike had a flat tire. I was sure glad Lucy was with us as she changed it in no time at all. Apparently these new e-bikes they bought this this year has one significant flaw: very weak outer tires. They let John and I ride back by ourselves, partly because it was an easy route and partly I think because they knew I had brought along a bike GPS and would find my way back no matter what!
Tomorrow we have a longer, more challenging ride.
