One of the Croatia's most spectacular spots is an inland forest laced with waterfalls and studded with turquoise lakes.

Plitvice (PLEET-veet-seh) Lakes National Park, a two-hour drive south of the capital city of Zagreb, is among Europe's best back-to-nature experiences.  Imagine Niagara Falls diced and sprinkled over a heavily forested Grand Canyon.  This lush valley has 16 terraced lakes strung together by waterfalls and miles of pleasant plank walks.  Over time, the water has simultaneously carved out and, with the help of mineral deposits, built up this fluid landscape.  Countless cascades and strangely clear and colorful water make this park a misty natural wonderland.

Plitvice became Croatia's first national park in 1949.  Thirty years later, it was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list.

On Easter Sunday in 1991, the first shots of Croatia's war with Yugoslavia were fired right here—in fact, the war's first casualty was a park policeman, Josip Jovic.  The Serbs occupied Plitvice until 1995, and many of the Croatians you'll meet here were evacuated and lived near the coastline as refugees.  Today the war is a fading memory, and the park is again a popular tourist destination, with 700,000 visitors each year. 

Plitvice's system of trails and boardwalks makes it possible for visitors to get up close to the park's beauty.  In some places, the paths literally lead right up the middle of a waterfall.  Strolling the boardwalks, you'll get great views of the travertine formations that make up Plitvice's many waterfalls.

You can climb through the slippery Šupljara Cave, an unassuming cavern with a cinematic claim to fame.  In the 1960s, several German and Italian spaghetti westerns were filmed at Plitvice and in other parts of Croatia (which, to European eyes, has terrain similar to the American West).  The most famous, Der Schatz im Silbersee ( The Treasure in Silver Lake ) was filmed here at Plitvice, and the treasure was hidden in this cave.  The movie is still a favorite in Germany—complete with Deutsch -speaking "Native Americans"—and the park is a stop on the popular theme tours that bring German tourists to movie locations in Croatia.

A 20-minute boat ride along the park's biggest lake, Lake Kozjak, connects Lower and Upper Lakes. 

The Park is a good example of a physics and biochemistry laboratory in the open. Its basic phenomenon is the unique way in which travertine is created as a result of strict and specific interaction between the physical, chemical and biological features of the karst waters, in present-day climatic conditions which prevail in the Park's untouched natural equilibrium.

Limestone sedimentation on underwater vegetation has created barriers, which, in turn, have formed a series of 16 cascading lakes in the lower Korana valley.  Starting from the highest to the lowest they are: the Prošćansko Lake (Prošće), Ciganovac, Okrugljak, Batinovac, Vir, Veliki and Mali Jovinovac (Velo and Malo Jezero), Galovac, Milino Jezero, Gradinsko Lake, Veliki Burget, Kozjak, Milanovac, Gavanovac, Kaluđerovac and Novakovića Brod.  The lakes cover a total area of 200 hectares; three-quarters of the area are made up of the two largest lakes - the Kozjak and the Prošćansko Lake.  Karst lakes are supplied by water from the Crna and Bijela rivers and the Plitvica with its tributary the Sartuka and the Riječica with its source in the dolomite rocks.

Karst sources originate in underwater streams, which pass only in part through the Park.  Due to varied natural features the lakes are divided into the Upper Lakes and the Lower Lakes. The Upper Lakes have dolomite beds and erosion on their surface produces a rich relief with numerous depressions and the usual stream valleys.  The terrain around these lakes and parts of the cascade beds are covered in woodland.  The Lower Lakes have limestone beds and are located in canyons with steep sides, which were formed by rivers before the period when the lakes were created.

The key feature of the entire Plitvice Lakes system is the magnificent dynamics of the constant growth and transformation of all its elements.  Due to the constant growth of the travertine the water barriers move along the cascades thus influencing the depth, size and shape of the lakes and even their number.  The crown of this water symphony is Sastavci where the Korana and the Plitvica meet to create a 72-metre high waterfall.  The Park stretches over 200 square kilometers and includes the narrow belt around the turquoise lakes, their translucent waterfalls, the colorful surrounding vegetation, the series of grottoes of the Upper Korana and the karst underground waters of the region.

The natural beauties of the Park include grottoes and caves, most of which are to be found in the limestone region of the Plitvica (Šupljara, Golubnjača, Crna pečina) and then there are the caves which were created in the travertine under the waterfalls.

More than three-quarters of the Park's surface are forest; the rest is meadows and fields surrounding dispersed hamlets and villages.  Due to differences in altitude, ranging from 400 to 1,200 meters, the Park has 11 forest communities, which include beech, fir, spruce and Scots pine.  At Čorkova Uvala, located in the northwestern part of the Park, there is an almost untouched rainforest of fir and beech with exceptional specimens.

The most interesting animals in the Park are the bear and wolf.  More than 120 bird species have been registered in the region, 70 of which nest there permanently.