One of the most famous waterfalls in Croatia is located in Krka National Park. Krka National Park is massive, and you won’t be able to make the most of it if you don’t have a car.
In this post I’ll lay out how to make the most of a day trip to Krka without a car. The only thing you’ll miss is the farther away smaller waterfall Roški Slap. Honestly it’s not worth the 4 hour ferry excursion you’d need to hop on to see it. Essentially to make the most of the day, you want to skip the ferry to the entrance and do the walk instead, then do the walk around Skradinski Buk, and finally finish the day at the beach near the town of Skradin.
The entrance ticket can be bought from the Krka National Park website. You’ll notice the ticket is divided into either a walking ticket or ferry ticket. I highly reccomend you get the walking one! The ferry ticket means you get on the ferry near the bus stop in Skradin. The queues for this get huge during peak season and even during off season get uncomfortably large for my liking! Plus the walk is so much better and much more scenic. It can be done under an hour and very easy! You’ll have plenty of time so worth spending that time on this walk.
Getting to Krka National Park without a car
If you’re coming from Zadar, the main bus station (I used Caffe Bar Lugano as the google maps pin) is where all excursion buses leave from. I would recommend getting the 9.30am bus (there’s one at 11.30am and 2.45pm too), it’s about 18 Euros, buy it online from https://www.flixbus.co.uk. It will take around 1 hour 20 minutes. Don’t worry about bus branding being Flixibus or not, you just want the bus that says it’s going toward Skradin, and then you can show the ticket to double check. Ours left from platform 2. It most likely will be operated by Knezevic.
This bus will drop you off at a town called Skradin. From here, avoid the chaos of the ferry queue and start walking towards the entrance of Krka National Park!
You can put Krka National Park in Google maps and it will direct you correctly. The walk is pretty much following the road ahead of you, going left. It follows the Krka river which will be on your right as you do the walk.
You’ll then come to this sign pointing toward the entrance to Krka national park.
From here, hopefully you bought the ticket online and can skip the queue at the ticket office and just scan to get in hassle free.
Exploring Krka and Skradinksi Buk
The walk from here is again quite gentle, so take in the views and enjoy! The ferry hasn’t even left the town of Skradin yet as you’ll notice no traffic on the river. This scenic walk will follow the Krka river and mountains all the way to Skradinski Buk.
The walk is on a well maintained gravel path, but I did notice they were busy building what looks like wooden boardwalks. Not sure how long it will take to finish, but it looks like it’ll be even closer to the river and an improvement.
It’ll be around half way through your walk that you’ll notice the ferry finally catches up and is on its way to Skradinski Buk, loaded with crowded and uncomfortable passengers.
Then finally, the famous waterfall is upon you! Worth taking a quick picture of the trail map for Skradinski Buk.
This whole trail takes around an hour or 1 hour 20 if you stop for lots of photos. The main issue can be the sheer amount of people traffic on the boardwalks, but feel free to stop whenever and overtake when the opportunity arises.
The first glimpse of Skradinski Buk will be covered by trees, but you can climb around and get close to the shore to get a better view. The best view will be from the bridge, however this bridge is jam packed as tourists stop on it to get photos so people trying to get on the bridge end up queuing waiting for them to finish. If you time it right, there won’t be a queue as people will move in, so don’t worry if you see a massive queue. Just walk around for a bit and it will move and finish, and then you can walk on straight away.
The main and clearest view from the bridge means wading through a horde of international tourists – once the queue cleared up we went in, and found a gap in the bridge where we could stand in and take in the beauty.
Crossing over the bridge to the other side continues the hike and eventually you reach a higher viewing platform from where you can look down on Skradinski Buk’s upper area.
There’s a picturesque watermill that has a gift shop/museum inside around here too, this is actually close to the Lozovac entrance path.
Once you’ve completed the circuit, that’s all there really is for this area. Unfortunately you can’t hike further into the park from here which I thought was a shame. There’s path near where the Skradinski Buk map was that goes upwards and away from the waterfall, I thought this may lead to further parts of Krka national park, maybe even towards Roski Slap, but it just ends like this, with a view of a enormously wide and very fast flowing Krka river.
Relaxing at Skradin Beach
To wrap up and finish the day, head back to Skradin and I highly recommend going to the beach near Skradin town that was on your right when you were walking towards Krka’s entrance. The water is warm enough for a swim despite being a river, but a bit chilly at first! There’s two stalls that sell drinks and snacks to top you up.
At this point you’ll have an hour or two before the bus comes in for a pick up, I’ve added a picture of the bus stop below in case it helps, but its just down the road from where it dropped you off. This itineray ensures you make the most of the day and see the best sights.
Now for my honest opinion on Skradinski Buk/Krka. I personally think if you’re short for time, and have to decide between this, or the other famous place, Plitvice Lakes, it’s the latter for sure! Plitvice Lakes is much more beautiful and unique, the day offers much more, as you can walk around several lakes and several waterfalls. You can either walk all of it, or mix it up by going on ferry and then on foot for certain areas. The whole park is open to explore and you feel like you get your money’s worth and both parks cost the same. You don’t need a car for any of it either. Krka on the other hand feels like it’s only Skradinski Buk.
With that said, tune in for a post on Plitvice Lakes next and thanks for reading!
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