Glad of the opportunity for
an uncrowded and a very welcome low-tech site (Auto Camp Slapovi Krke), as a
contrast to recent experiences, we chatted to the sister of the owner, who had
led us by car to the site from our original, crowded, ACSI one. Hearing of the
minibus trip that they also organised into the Krka national park (the entrance
literally 500m away from our pitch) we were torn between organising our own
visit, and taking the lazy way out with a bit of local knowledge thrown in. Both
approaches seemed to have equally strong supporters from what we’d read, so we
opted for the easy option and parted with HRK 750 for the two of us, which
included entrance to the park (HRK 120pp), lunch, and local knowledge of spots
to visit away from the coach parties. Good value we thought, and so it turned
out to be!
Just inland from Šibenik on
the coast, the area has been a national park since the mid 80s due to the
amazing sequence of waterfalls that run from the source of the river Krka near
Knin. For us, there was an added bonus to the admiring nature bit, in that the
formation of the falls was caused by the creation of travertine – a limestone
type material usually found on/under the surface of rocks – and the very same
that we’d chosen for our renovated fireplace at home! Keen to discard any
memories of DIY however, we settled into the tour, along with our German and Dutch
fellow explorers.
Having left Camp Slapovi at
(for us) the early hour of 0845, we were treated to being just ahead of the
coach tours. Ejected from the minibus by the driver (the campsite owner) with
the oft repeated battle cry throughout the day of ‘FOTO!’ we were treated first
to a 90 minute wander along raised wooden walkways through the shaded glades of
Skradinksi Buk, leading on to the waterfall itself. The falls here are more
about length than height – but looked suitably impressive to us.
There is also an interesting
techno/historical element that’s almost overlooked here too: the ruins of the
Krka Hydroelectric power plant, that came on-line just two days after the Tesla
plant in the US at Niagra in 1895, but which was decommissioned in 1914. We
think this was due to it adopting a low voltage supply rather than the now
standard 115v/130v AC supply we use.
From here we were bussed off
to the Kanjon Čikole and the Visovac viewpoint of the Franciscan monastery. A
centre of pilgrimage for believers since the mid 1400s (and for tour boats that
disgorge passengers for a 30 minute opportunity to combine piety and
photography) we looked down from our craggy viewpoint, in the company of a
statue of a Croatian King from the 11thC (Petra) and, more
impressively, a pair of what we were told were golden eagles. The park does
have them, and they were very big – so we’ll go with that!
Embarking again in the
minibus (and glad we had the two, air-conditioned front seats as the
temperature rose) we were deposited at Roški Slap for more waterfall admiration
– and lunch. With platters of bread, cheese and Croation proscuttio (cunningly
called pršut) and wine/beer and water, served up in one of the many eateries in
the park that also doubles as an educational centre for one of the no longer
practised folk-crafts (ours was blanket washing…) we relaxed in the shade for a
while.
Post-lunch and we were off
again – this time to Manojlovac Slap – technically the tallest of the falls and
impressive for its roaring sounds… However, that’s after rain and when the
river up-stream hasn’t been channelled off to the Miljacka hydroelectric plant.
We were rewarded with a ‘what might have been’ view all the same, after a hot
walk down to the viewing platform.
Re-embarking the minibus was
a bit slower, as some of our group who’d been on the beer were a little slower
climbing back up the dirt track… And so we set off, eventually, for the Krka
monastery, not realising until we got there that it’s a spiritual centre for the
Serbian Orthodox faith, and still has a small number of novitiates. We’d
noticed en-route a number of burned out and bullet riddled buildings from the
homeland war, and, knowing we were also planning to visit Knin (one of the
starting points for the war and not far from the monastery) it was sobering to
reflect on the religious elements of the animosity between Croats and Serbs.
Our tour, however, concentrated
on the more distant past – not only the creation of the monastery in the early
1400s and the intense iconography of the Orthodox faith, but also the Roman era
catacombs under the church where we were shown both a pile of bones from the
mediaeval period, and also a fish image carved in the roof, apparently from
very early Christians who believed that St Paul himself had worshipped there.
Wary of expressing any views of a religious nature, we admired instead the
tranquillity of the grounds, as the aroma of the monks’ cabbage-infused lunch
wafted up from their refectory…
Marred only by Mr B’s
disappointment that the trip didn’t include the Roman ruins at Burnum (a
military camp for two legions in the 1st century) we arrived back at
Slapovi, exhausted but glad we’d taken an organised trip. There’s lots more to
do here and next time we’ll be able to plan our own trips, based on what we’ve
seen and learned.
Waking to much clearer skies,
we packed the van and headed off inland for our trip to Knin, not far from the
Bosnian border. We were headed for the old fortress, not only as its one of the
best of its type in the area, but also as it houses a museum to the homeland
war – something we are both keen to learn more about. The drive was an
eye-opener, not just for more of the obvious signs of war damage we had seen
already, but also for the dramatic change in scenery, as the scrub/mountainous
landscape inland from the Krka park gave way to lush field systems that clearly
benefited from lying on the right side of the mountain. The area also produces
a product of which we’ve recently become rather fond; Dalmation pršut made in
the town of Drniš and recently awarded an EU geographical origin label.
Stopping to admire the Knin
fortress from the approach road, we drove through the town and out the other
side before we realised that the small brown sign for the ‘tvrđava’
up a very steep road, was where we should have gone…
Managing to
get to just beneath the walls and with enough space to turn the van around
ready for the descent, we marvelled at the scale and condition of the fortress.
OK, it’s been toshed up a bit, but it is truly impressive and easy to see why
it was originally built in the 10th C and updated by a series of
invaders ever since, sitting atop a rocky ridgeline.
Noticing with
some excitement that there was also a restaurant with panoramic views, we paid
the very reasonable HRK 20 pp entry fee and headed off to look at the museum
first. Notwithstanding that the commentary is mainly in Hrvatski (and some in
the Serbian cryllic script, requiring Mr B to dust off his schoolboy Russian)
it was a very poignant and powerful visual reminder of the West’s failure
during the war, as well as the intense nationalism that that fed both the war
and the subsequent peace.
As you’d
expect from a museum set up to celebrate the Croatian victory over the Serbs,
it’s a little one-sided in reviewing what seems to have been a conflict that
drew on many elements in its inception and duration, yet it captured the horror
of the suffering of ordinary people, as well as the ease with which some of the
same ordinary people can slip into militarism and genocide. Whilst perhaps not
as notorious as other parts of the former Yugoslavia in the intensity of
fighting or scale of atrocities, Knin saw its fair share and Mr B was more than
a little dismayed to find that the first leader of the Republic of the Serbian
Krajina (a breakaway area in Croatia at the point Croatia was defining its
independence) was a Milan Babić – a possible relative, as it’s pronounced the
same as his surname! We’d come to Croatia looking forward to exploring the
Babić grape – but not expected to find possible links to the War Crimes
tribunal in the Hague!
Moving on to
the fortress itself, after suggesting in the visitors’ book that there may be
more beneficiaries of the museum’s messages than just those who can glean bits
of Hrvatski, we found that we had the grounds and ramparts of the fortress
pretty much to ourselves.
After
exploring the fortress from tip to tip and marvelling at the views and
construction techniques in equal measure, we dropped into the restaurant for
lunch and to reflect on what we’d seen, grateful that we had so far spent our
adult lives living in a country that has not gone through a conventional civil
war for a very long time (recognising, perhaps, that the current and recent
terrorist attacks in the UK may actually be a new type of asymmetric civil
war).
With history
and the fortress looming over us, we headed off after lunch back towards the
coast and the town of Šibenik – next on our list of places to visit on this
trip – and back to the seaside!
S&J.
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