the Plitvice lakes National Park

The largest and oldest national park in south-eastern Europe was founded in 1949 and covers an area of almost 300 square kilometres. It lies in Croatia, on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a karst landscape that no romantic painter could imagine more beautifully, and in 1979 it was added to the UNESCO World Natural Heritage list. The sixteen lakes and countless peaks were once the backdrop for a Karl May film - and still are for the holiday videos of visitors from all over the world.

The A1 motorway runs along the coast at a distance of 50 km from the park entrance. It is perfectly built and there is only the occasional small traffic jam on the weekends of the high season. Via the Karlovac exit you reach the northern end of the park, via Otočac the western end, and you get to the south of the Plitvice Lakes via the Gornja Ploča exit. On road D1 you then drive in the direction of the villages of Ogulin, Gospić and Rakovica across the Dinaric mountains, where you already gain a first impression of the landscape that then awaits you in perfection in the park.