We have a book at home, Wild Wonders of Europe, that showcases stunning pictures of amazing places in Europe alongside a conservation message. The waterfalls and lakes of Plitvice features in this book, which makes it sound like a beautiful, undiscovered wilderness. So we decided to pay it a visit on our way back through inland Croatia. In fact this was our furthest point East, close to the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On reading the guidebook we realised that lots of other people probably had the same idea, so we prepared ourselves for a few crowds. What we didn’t expect were hour-long queues to buy tickets at 8am (at one entrance; the other having already sold out), more queues once in to get on a bus to the start of a strictly prescribed route (and more queues to get on a boat halfway round) and essentially a procession around the trails, with queues at all the viewpoints. In fact it bordered on unsafe at times as people pushed past each other on narrow boardwalks in search of the perfect picture.

The scenery was really stunning, and our pictures make it look reasonably empty and like we had a good day out. But in fact it felt like a theme park (or Scottish ski centre), with prices and queues to match, and was not a wholly enjoyable experience. It seems to be a bit of a victim of its own success, and we felt it could be managed much better. At least we’ll never regret not going, and Jess had a great day as she finds people (and dogs) much more interesting than waterfalls…

Impressive amounts of travertine (and boardwalk)

One of the waterfalls on the upper lakes

Many waterfalls and pools

Some of the waterfalls were underneath the boardwalk

Wishing my camera can do long exposures

Reeds adding foreground interest

Limestone encrusted trees – and incredibly clear water

Waterfalls across the lake

There were some great trees and reflections too

Countless smaller cascades all around the trails

And tree roots

Out and back to another viewpoint (Jess got waterfall fatigue before we did)

More cascades

The sun was annoyingly in the wrong place for some of the more impressive falls

I think this might have been the view described as “just a lot of drainpipes”

Varied vegetation

Snacking on the boat across one of the bigger lakes

Lower Lakes (significantly busier)

The imaginatively named Velika Slap (Big Waterfall), the classic Plitvice view

Our “premium” pitch at Plitvice Holiday Village. It had a nice view but some of the standard pitches were bigger and had more grass and shade. We wonder if we have different priorities to most people…