Peruća Lake

Directions

Perućko jezero

Peruća Lake is a reservoir on the Cetina river in inland Dalmatia, between Sinj and Vrlika, with the mountains Svilaja and Dinara on either side. It was made by the Peruća dam in 1958, the first large reservoir built in karst, and it regulates the flood season in the Hrvace and Sinj fields and the work of the power plants downstream. Its depth varies a great deal, because the dam stores water in the rainy autumn and winter and releases it in summer.

History

When the valley was flooded, the land of several villages around Vrlika, Garjak and Hrvace was taken over, and most of the people moved up to the slopes of Svilaja, Dinara and Debelo brdo. In dry years, when the water is low, stone house walls, mills, dry-stone walls and the remains of a drowned monastery reappear. On 28 January 1993, during the Croatian War of Independence, the occupying forces set off explosives in the dam; it was badly damaged but held, and the Croatian Army drove them out the same day. The dam was fully rebuilt by 1996.

Nature

Brown trout, the Cetina chub and the spined loach are the lake’s native fish. Rainbow trout, pike, carp and grayling were brought in later, and the pike are blamed for a sharp fall in the native stocks.

Gallery

3 photos

Photo: Zoran Knez and Dražen Radujkov. · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo: Bjoertvedt · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo: Marko Jukić -Majkl · CC BY-SA 4.0

Show all photos

Visit

Swimming

No reliable information

Tips

Vrlika is the main base. The Cetina flows into the lake at Garjak, where there are beaches and side channels, a rowing camp and a campsite. Swimming, rowing, kayaking and fishing are the lake’s summer pastimes, and Croatian and foreign rowers come here to train for international races; fishing is for sport and recreation. The level drops through the summer as the dam releases water, so the shore changes with the season.

The source of the Cetina, rising at the foot of Dinara a few kilometres above the lake, is one of the most photographed places in Dalmatia. Near Vrlika stand the 9th-century church of the Holy Saviour, one of the most important Pre-Romanesque buildings in Croatia, and the Prozor fortress, with a view over the lake. Try the local uštipci fritters and veal cooked under the peka.