Krka National Park to Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Monday 7th November 2022
Today is just a drive day to the Plitvice Lakes National Park with a couple of side trips along the way. Unfortunately we have to delete Zadar from our itinerary as we are running out of time. We got away just before 10am and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine as we drove along. Our first stop was the Serbian Monastery at the northern end of the Krka National Parl. This is usually open for tours in the summer time, but today we could just walk through the grounds and go in the church. We were shown in the church by one of the four or five monks who live there. As you enter the church the first thing you notice is the smell of incense. It was very different inside, every wall was covered with a painting, there were chandelier type incense laps and it was quite small inside.

We then headed to the Roman Forum Arena also located in the National Park. The amphitheatre located in the former Roman military camp Burnum is the only military theatre in Croatia. Excavations and archeological works are still ongoing there – the amphitheatre is excavated and reconstructed. It was built at the beginning of the 1st century AD.

That was it for our stops today, we continued on to Plitvice Lakes National Park. As we drove the temperature dropped down as low as 7°C. Eek! Here comes the cold. As we continued out of the mountain area it went up again to about 11°. As we drove along I noticed many abandoned houses in disrepair, I was thinking maybe they had fled during the war. As it turned out, I was correct – many Serbs left their homes and haven’t returned. Apparently an incident at the Plitvice Lakes, Croatia, at Easter time in 1991, marked the beginning of the Croatian Homeland War.

We arrived at the Plitvice Lakes National Park and went straight to the office for information. We were hoping to do a walk this afternoon but unfortunately the ticket office closes at 1pm and we didn’t arrive until 1.20pm. Oh well! Looks like we get a rest instead. We found out our information for our walk tomorrow, headed to get some groceries and arrived at our accomodation at about 2.30pm. It was quite cool here as well, so we decided to just have a lazy afternoon.

“The Krka Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery dedicated to the Archangel Michael, located near the river Krka, 3 kilometres east of Kistanje, in central Dalmatia, Croatia. It is the best known monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia and it is officially protected as part of the Krka National Park. The monastery was built on top of a Roman site, and Roman burial catacombs exist beneath a part of the church. The Romanesque belfry suggest that the Orthodox monastery was previously home to a Catholic church, as the style was uncommon in other Serbian Orthodox churches of the time. The Orthodox monastery was built in 1577. Other monastery buildings (18th–19th century), the church, and the belfry are situated around a rectangular cloister with arcades.”

Record post time today – 5.41pm. Rest time for me now.