Croatia's mountains well worth a visit

By Thomas Brey Jul 6, 2010, 12:42 GMT

Orebic/Zadar, Croatia - Till now, the Croatian mainland with its nearly 1,800 kilometres of coastline, 66 inhabited islands and more than 1,000 uninhabited islands has been considered a paradise for bathers.

But for many foreign guests, this is not enough, and so the country has developed new offerings, one of the most popular being hiking.

The Adriatic country with its steep coasts, however, offers a different kind of hiking experience than that of the Alps. Starting at sea level, the karst stone mountains rise sharply to over 1,700 metres altitude. Often, the hotels or the local tourism offices will organize mountain treks.

Those who are in good physical shape and can withstand the heat are not at all dissuaded from attempting the lengthier and more difficult trails in high summer temperatures. Those of more modest ambitions prefer late springtime or autumn as the best time to undertake their trek in milder temperatures.

The first summit to be conquered during a Croatia vacation could be the local mountain overlooking Orebic on the Peljesac peninsula. The town is best known to vacationers as the harbour with ferry links to the island of Korcula.

Up on the 961-metre-high Sveti Ilija (Mount Elias) there are said to be poisonous sand and horn vipers. But the local mountain guide tries to be reassuring.

'There are snakes here just as everywhere in Dalmatia,' says tour guide chairman Boris Grljusic. 'But nobody can recall that anyone has ever died from a snakebite.'

Instead of the shy snakes, which usually rush for cover to get away from hikers, the much greater danger for hikers is the wrong type of summer clothing. The loose, but sharp-edged stones along the way can only be mastered with sturdy footwear. Even firm running shoes are inadequate here.

There are two main routes for climbing Sveti Ilija. One leads from Orebic via a Franciscan monastery directly to the summit. This trail is steep and demanding.

The second standard route begins in the town of Nakovana, 8 kilometres west of Orebic. After 3.5 kilometres of a gently climbing, broad road, the route rises steeply in the direction of the new clubhouse of the hiking club and then onwards via the old trail shelter to the peak.

The panoramic view from the top is unequalled anywhere. One can see the mainland with the huge Biokovo Mountains near Makarska, the island of Hvar and behind it, the island of Brac. To the south-west the view is of the island of Korcula, whose main town is like a small-scale copy of the famous old city centre of Dubrovnik.

Outside the high travel season, an average of two dozen hikers trek to the top of Sveti Ilija on weekends. In July and August the figure is 50 to 100 hikers who attempt the reach the top, local residents report. So this amounts more to idyllic conditions than masses of people storming up the mountain.

About 30 kilometres long and up to 70 kilometres wide, the Biokovo mountain range is the trademark of the central Croatian Adriatic area around the city of Makarska.

The massive mountains 'appear to be rooted in the sea,' says geologist Ksenija Protrka, an employee in the region's nature park. The mountains rise up from sea level to the Sveti Jure peak at 1,762 metres - an ascent of superlatives.

Travelling over the highest-elevation asphalt road in the country, the route to the summit covers 23 kilometres. There is virtually no safety railing and so the road is not exactly safe. The first stop at about the halfway point is a geology-education path which explains the erosion caused by the wind and weather in the karst rocks.

The first lookout point offering a view of the deep-blue Adriatic is then Ravna Vlaska, elevation 1,228 metres.

Once at the summit, one is witness to fascinating contrasts: on the mainland side of the Biokovos there is green vegetation thanks to rainfall, while on the side facing the sea the slopes are rough and bare. At the Vosac lookout point, the visitor's breath is taken away by the view far down below on Makarska.

Hiking is also possible further north in the Paklenica National Park near the port city of Zadar. There, a favourite stretch leads to the Manita caverns at 570 metres elevation.

Nevertheless, most of the 110,000 annual visitors to the area do not come for the hiking, but for the rock-climbing. The steep cliffs are a magnet for free-climbers from around the world.

The star attraction among the sheer walls of rock is the 712-metre-high Anica Kuk. Since 1830, more than 80 different ascent routes have been staked out by generations of climbers.