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Kravice Waterfalls

Kravice Waterfalls

WaterfallsHerzegovina-Neretva Canton, near Ljubuški, Bosnia and Herzegovina
August·Peaking now

Jun–Sep

The reason to come: the park opens the pool to swimmers, the water holds 16–20 °C and rowing boats cross to the curtain. July and August middays bring the coaches from Mostar and Međugorje — reach the rim before 11am.



Year-round The tufa amphitheatre, its moss curtains and the broad turquoise pool stand here all year; the river's volume, the water temperature, the boats and the swimming are what change with the seasons.

Kravice pours over a cliff that its own water is building. The Trebižat River arrives carrying dissolved limestone, and at the lip mosses and algae pull that carbonate back out of the water and lock it into porous rock called tufa — the same living stone that raised the barriers at Plitvice and Krka further up the Dinaric karst. The wall it has grown stands roughly 25 metres high and splits the river into about twenty separate cascades, which drop through hanging moss into a pool some 120 metres across. The river feeding it is strange in its own right: it sinks underground and resurfaces so often on its way across the karst that it picks up nine different names along the route — Vrljika, Matica, Tihaljina and the rest — and only arrives here as the Trebižat. Forest closes the amphitheatre on every side, so in a dry, stony corner of Herzegovina the first view over the rim is of falling water framed by green. Few waterfalls this size let you swim at their foot, and at Kravice the pool is the whole point. Swimming is allowed from June to September, when the water reaches a bracing 16–20 °C, and small boats row people out toward the curtain while spray drifts far enough to cool the entire bowl on a hot afternoon. Outside that window it is a different place: the flow falls away to a fraction of its wet-season volume by late summer, and in March and April the separate strands merge into a single thundering wall. Today the falls are a ticketed, state-protected park — a stepless walkway drops from the gate to the water, an old mill still stands beside it, and on July and August middays the coaches from Mostar and Međugorje arrive in force.

Worth knowing

Good to know

  • Come before 11am on a weekday — the coach parties from Mostar and Međugorje land between midday and mid-afternoon in July and August, and they fill the rim of the pool first.
  • Even in August the pool only reaches about 20 °C — it is deepest and coldest directly under the falls, and there are no lifeguards, so stay clear of the fast water at the downstream end.
  • In the high-water weeks you watch from the rim, not the shore — the river climbs over the boardwalk and lower terraces, closing the waterside paths just when the falls look most powerful.
  • Wear sandals with grip — the tufa around the pool is permanently wet, slick with spray and algae, and the last stretch down to the water is bare rock.

Things to do

  1. 1

    Swim in the pool under the falls

    Swim in the pool under the falls

    From June to September you can wade straight into the turquoise pool the cascades land in — cold enough at 16–20 °C to knock the breath out of you, deepest right under the falling water. Locals treat it as the region's swimming hole, floating within spray distance of the curtain.

  2. 2

    Take in the whole amphitheatre from the rim

    Take in the whole amphitheatre from the rim

    From the path along the rim the entire tufa wall lines up in one view: twenty-odd strands of water spread across a 25-metre cliff, with the pool spread out beneath. It is the one spot where you can see how wide the falls actually are.

  3. 3

    Catch the spray backlit at day's end

    Catch the spray backlit at day's end

    Late in the day the low sun crosses the amphitheatre and lights the spray drifting off the rock into glowing sheets. It is also the quietest hour here, after the coaches have gone and the pool is left to a handful of swimmers.

  4. 4

    Walk the shoreline to the foot of the cascades

    Walk the shoreline to the foot of the cascades

    A path runs around the pool at water level, close enough to pick out individual falls and the moss curtains they drop through. Up close you can see the tufa itself: soft, porous, spongy rock still being laid down by the water running over it.

  5. 5

    Picnic in the shade above the water

    Picnic in the shade above the water

    The wooded ground back from the pool is the classic Herzegovinian picnic spot, and on summer weekends it fills with local families. The spray keeps the whole bowl several degrees cooler than the stony country just outside it.

  6. 6

    Row out to the curtain by boat

    Small boats push off from the shore and take you across the pool toward the falling water, as close as the current allows. From the middle of the pool the tufa wall rises straight out of your own reflection and the noise takes over completely.

Watch

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