Mountain walking and trekking guide to Croatia - Europe

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Updates
• Further Reading

Croatia’s major mountain areas are covered by a detailed (1:25,000 or 1:30,000) series of maps published by SMAND (www.smand.hr). They give accurate topographical detail (with contour lines drawn to 25m), and mark both paths and huts. Those relevant to the routes in this guide, with their sheet numbers, are:

Medvednica (01)
Samoborsko gorje (08)
Samarske, Bijele stijene, Bjelolasica (11a)
Bjelolasica (11b)
Gorski kotar I (11)
Gorski kotar IV (14)
Ucka (15)
Sjeverni Velebit (16)
Srednji Velebit (17)
Južni Velebit I (18)
Nacionalni Park Paklenica (19)
Biokovo (32)

Until recently these were unavailable in the UK, but The Map Shop (www.themapshop.co.uk, tel: 01684 593146) now stocks them, and they can be ordered online. The maps are also readily available from bookshops in Zagreb (see Appendix C), and from hiking clubs and huts, and usually retail at about 55Kn.

Some of the national parks and nature parks produce their own maps, including Plitvicka jezera, Paklenica, Lonjsko Polje, Papuk and Medvednica. A new sheet, covering the recently extended boundaries of Risnjak National Park, is also available from PD Snježnik and PD Risnjak, if you are unable to find the relevant SMAND sheet. Also useful for its coverage of the entire Gorski kotar area is the old Gorski kotar planinarska karta (1:100,000), produced in Slovenia, though this may now be hard to find, and a number of the paths shown have now become forest roads. A number of military sheets (1:100,000) are also available through the Croatian Mountaineering Association. However, the SMAND maps remain the preferred choice for walking.

More general maps include the Freytag & Berndt series covering the coast in a number of sheets (1:100,000), but note that while fine for planning trips around the islands, these are not suitable for hiking. These maps do not accurately locate all paths, while the inclusion of huts and springs is frequently misleading, due to a number of the former having been closed for a number of years (or requiring advance booking if you are to find them open at all), and a number of the latter drying up over the summer.

Tourist information offices generally do not carry maps suitable for hiking – a notable exception being the excellent map (‘Walking through the countryside of the Pelješac Riviera’) available free from the tourist information centre in Orebic.

Finally, a number of Croatian-language hiking guides (see Appendix E) include fairly detailed maps. Recommended even if you are unable to read the text are the following small and inexpensive route guides: Velebitski planinarski put (for the entire route from PD Zavižan to Velika Paklenica) and Mrkopaljski planinarski put (covering the MPP on Bijele stijene).