Rastoke, a small village sitting on two rivers, is a place you just have to visit when traveling around Plitvice Lakes and Lika County. Join me and my family as we walk around and explore its waterfalls, canyons, cave, museum, and mills. We have visited Rastoke several times over the years, and it never disappointed us.
Here are some additional tips about visiting Rastoke.
Visiting Rastoke.
Rastoke is located in the city of Slunj, about 30 km north of Plitvice Lakes in the direction of Zagreb.
I usually visit Rastoke in combination with a visit to National Park Plitvice Lakes, for a visit to Rastoke you need from 2 hours, so both are possible in one day.
As I mentioned in my Video, you can walk around the village of Rastoke for free or enter the central part for a fee of about 8 Euro. Both trips are enjoyable, of course, the paid version gives you some additional experiences.
Parking around Rastoke is plentiful, but you must walk a bit downhill to get to the village.
Eating
In the village of Rastoke, there are several nice restaurants, some of them serving local traditional dishes. One dish to try is trout from the Slunjčica River, which is on the menu e.g. at Restaurant Petro.
As you can see in my photo above, eating at Rastoke comes with a fantastic Ambiente, where you eat on the river.
Sleeping
If you like falling asleep to the sound of running water, you can book an apartment in Rastoke, if you want a bit more peace there are plenty of nice apartments in Slunj.
If you are visiting also Plitvice Lakes National Park, Slunj is actually a great place to stay overnight, as you have buses from Slunj to the National Park entrance, which makes it easy and cheap to travel there.
About Rastoke
At Rastoke, the Slunjčica River (also called Slušnica by local people) splits into several river branches flowing across cascades and small waterfalls into the Korana River. Rastoke also refers to a certain kind of limestone called rastopina or rastok in Croatian.
The water in the Slunjčica River is quite cold, as the river, for the most part, runs inside the mountain and only surfaces a few km before Rastoke, the water in the Korana River is much warmer as it flows on the surface from Plitvice Lakes.
The whole village of Rastoka and the town of Slunj, emerge around watermills at its peak Rastoke had 22 watermills mainly used for grinding various types of corn, and water power has been used to create old-day washing machines, operating in a similar way as we know washing machines today.
Where can I book this place to stay?
I assume you reffer to accommodaion in the center of Rastoke? If so, you can inquire about the apartments here https://rastoke-croatia.com/accomodation/
If you had anything else in mind, please let me know
Best regards,
Morten