Croatia · Lika-Karlovac

Gradinsko jezero

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Jezerce

Gradinsko jezero, also called Jezerce, is one of the Upper Lakes of Plitvice, an L-shaped lake below Galovac fed by Milino jezero, Galovac and Batinovac. It takes its name from the gradina, an old hill fort that once stood on the hill between it and Kozjak.

How it formed

The Plitvice lakes are held back by barriers of tufa, porous rock laid down by mosses and algae as the water flows over them, so the lakes and the waterfalls between them keep growing and changing. The twelve Upper Lakes lie on impermeable dolomite, which gives them wider, gentler shores than the Lower Lakes in their limestone canyon. Gradinsko jezero itself hides flooded tufa barriers a couple of metres below the surface, a sign that it was once two or more separate lakes; at its far end the water runs over low cascades through the Burgeti ponds into Kozjak.

Nature

The shallows shine light green, turquoise or milky white where the bed is bare tufa mud, called bjelar, and the deeper water is dark green. The lake is a favourite nesting place for ducks, which walkers often see along its shores.

Visit

Swimming

No reliable information

Tips

Wooden walkways lead around the lake, and the viewpoints above it look across to the Prštavci and the Galovački buk falling from Galovac, among the finest panoramas in the park.

The lakes lie in Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia’s first, proclaimed in 1949 and on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979. Swimming is strictly prohibited, as are feeding animals, picking plants and leaving the marked paths and boardwalks. Spring and autumn, when the forests change colour, are the loveliest and quieter seasons.