Sixteen lakes, connected by 92 waterfalls, in a valley that UNESCO has protected since 1979. Plitvice is, by any objective measure, one of the most extraordinary natural landscapes in Europe. It is also, from June through August, visited by approximately 1.4 million people per year. This creates a specific problem, and a specific solution.
The problem is that by 10am on a summer morning, the main boardwalk routes have become queues. The photography that the lakes seem to invite — mist, stillness, the particular turquoise that comes from calcium carbonate suspended in the water — becomes impossible in anything approaching a crowd.
The solution is access before the crowds arrive, combined with routes that most visitors never take.
What Early Access Actually Means
Through our arrangement with the park administration, guests on T&T itineraries enter the national park at 7am — a full two hours before standard opening time in high season. A private park guide accompanies the group (maximum six people) through the upper lakes first, moving in the opposite direction to the later crowds, following paths that branch away from the main circuit.
At 7am in June, mist sits in the valley. The sound of the waterfalls dominates completely. The boardwalks are empty. The colour of the water in the morning light is something that photographs cannot adequately record — you understand this only when you are standing in front of it.
The Upper Lakes: The Part Most People Skip
The lower lakes receive the majority of visitors, largely because the entry points and boat connections make them more convenient. The upper lakes are larger, wilder, and in the early morning, almost entirely deserted. The path that follows the western bank of Prošćansko jezero — the highest and largest of the sixteen lakes — has views that are, without exaggeration, among the finest in Croatia.
We complete the upper lake circuit before the park opens to general visitors. By the time the first tour buses arrive, guests are having breakfast at a farmhouse twenty minutes from the park, eating honey from the property’s own bees and eggs from its chickens, and the morning already feels complete.
When to Come
May is our strongest recommendation. The waterfalls are at maximum volume from snowmelt, the vegetation is at its most vivid, and the crowds have not yet arrived. October is equally beautiful for different reasons — the beech forests that surround the lakes turn copper and gold, and the light has a quality that summer never quite achieves.
