Paklenica National Park

Listen first. Under the sound of your own footsteps there is water: a thin, cold stream moving over pale stones. Above you, the walls of the canyon rise so close and so high that the sky becomes a narrow blue ribbon. The air carries a sharp smell of pine resin and warm limestone. In summer, cicadas fill the lower valley with a dry, electric hum. This is Paklenica, cut into the southern slopes of the Velebit mountain range, a short walk from the Adriatic coast.

The name itself holds a small surprise. Many visitors assume it comes from the Croatian word for hell, "pakao", and the deep, hot canyons make that guess easy. But the more widely accepted origin is gentler. It points to "paklina", a sticky resin that local people collected from the black pine trees growing on these slopes. They used it as a folk remedy for wounds. They also used it to seal the wooden boats of the nearby coast. So the name of this wild place may come from a simple household material.

The park protects two main canyons. Velika Paklenica, the Great Paklenica, is the wider and more visited one. Mala Paklenica, the Small Paklenica, lies a little to the south. It is narrower, quieter, and rougher underfoot. Both were carved through limestone by water over a very long time. Rain and melting snow from the high Velebit ridges still run down through them to the sea. Paklenica was declared a national park in 1949, which makes it one of the older protected areas in Croatia.

Look at the rock around you. It is karst, a landscape of limestone that water slowly dissolves. Karst makes caves, sinkholes, sharp ridges, and streams that vanish underground and appear again further down. Here, the stone is pale grey, almost white in strong sun. Up close, you can see grooves, pits, and tiny ridges where rainwater has eaten into the surface. Some of the walls show darker streaks, where water runs after storms. The whole canyon is a record of water working on stone.

Near the entrance to Velika Paklenica, there is something unexpected. Inside the mountain, there is a network of tunnels and underground rooms. They were built in the years after the Second World War, during the time of Yugoslavia, as a secret shelter for the country's leadership. Locals often call it Tito's bunker, after the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. It was never used for its original purpose. Today, these concrete corridors host exhibitions and visitor information, which feels strange in such a natural place.

As you walk deeper into the Great Paklenica, watch for the huge wall that climbers love. It is called Anića kuk. It rises several hundred metres above the trail, a vast face of grey stone. On a clear day, you may see small coloured dots moving slowly up its surface. Those dots are climbers. Paklenica is one of the most important rock climbing areas in Croatia, with hundreds of routes. Some are short and easy. Others take a full day and demand serious skill.

If you stand still and listen near the lower climbing walls, you will often hear voices calling across the stone. "Slack!" "Take!" "Safe!" These short words are the language of climbing partners. They travel well in the canyon, because the walls bounce sound back and forth. In spring, the park becomes a meeting point for climbers from many countries. Their tents, ropes, and chalk bags are part of the human texture of the place, as much as the hikers and families on the trail.

The landscape here once had a very different life. For centuries, shepherds and farmers lived on these slopes. They grazed sheep and goats, built dry stone walls, and kept small fields where the soil allowed. Higher up the valley, you can still find old stone houses, some ruined and some restored. Along the stream, there were once water mills that ground grain for the families of the area. Their life was hard. Summers were dry and hot, winters could be cold and windy.

That wind has a name: the bura. It is a strong, cold wind that drops from the Velebit ridges down to the sea. It can arrive suddenly, with powerful gusts. Old houses on this coast often have small windows and thick stone walls because of it. When the bura blows, the air becomes very clear, and the islands across the water look sharp and close. If you visit in colder months, you may feel it pushing at your back in the canyon.

The park is also a home for wildlife. Birds of prey nest on the high cliffs, including golden eagles and peregrine falcons. Look up and you may see a large shape turning slowly on the warm air above the ridges. On the ground, lizards run across hot stones and disappear into cracks. In the forests higher up, there are deer, foxes, and, more rarely, bears and wolves on the wider Velebit range. The variety comes from the sharp change between coast and mountain.

That change is easy to feel as you climb. Near the sea, the plants are Mediterranean: low shrubs, sage, and strong-smelling herbs. Higher in the canyon, you meet black pine, beech, and cooler air. Within a few hours of walking, the landscape shifts from warm coast to mountain forest. For this reason, the whole Velebit range was included in a UNESCO biosphere reserve, a protected area where nature and human use are studied together. Paklenica is one of its most visited parts.

There is one more surprise, and it comes from cinema. In the 1960s, film crews used these canyons for a series of German Western films based on the Winnetou novels by Karl May. For audiences across Europe, Paklenica became the American Wild West. The dry stone walls, the deep gorges, and the bright light were perfect for scenes of horses and riders. Some older visitors from Germany still come here because they remember these films from their childhood.

Now, take a moment where you are. Feel the stone under your shoes, smooth in some places and sharp in others. Notice the sound of the stream, the shade of the pines, the narrow strip of sky above. The shepherds, the climbers, the film crews, and the builders of the bunker all passed through this same canyon. As you walk on, look at how the light moves on the walls. It changes every hour, and no two visits look quite the same.