Telašćica Nature Park

Telašćica is most often mentioned as a calm “harbour” where boaters take shelter in the Kornati area. It lies on the southeast of Dugi otok and is distinguished by its exceptional beauty, which is why it has been declared a nature park. The bay is about 8 km deep, almost 2 km wide at its widest point, and is graced by countless smaller coves and a string of little islands. But that is not the end of all Telašćica’s wonders. They are only just beginning here!

Brief directions

You can sail into Telašćica by boat, and you can also reach it from the land. The main land entrance to the nature park is here: 43.93505341084286, 15.146734013668853. When you turn off the main Zaglav – Sali road, you will see the signs and a little ticket booth. Along with the tickets you also get a map containing all the park’s landmarks. The map we received during our visit is very imaginatively designed. The way the paper is folded is something we had not seen before, and besides excellent aesthetics, the solution is also very practical.

The tickets are fairly priced and valid for 24 hours, so with the same ticket you can practically tour the park over two days. That is handy if in summer you want to avoid the hottest part of the day, so two late afternoons are just enough to see the main parts of the park without hurrying. You wouldn’t get bored even staying a whole week in the park, but two afternoons are enough to see the most interesting spots and get a sense of what Telašćica is.

After entering the park, you need to drive 1.4 km to the seashore, the deepest point of the bay, from where the first two islands come into view — Gornji and Donji Škoj.

If your goal is the park’s main attractions, then continue along the road by the sea to the right. Without turning off anywhere, after 2.2 km you come to a junction shaped like the letter “X”. There you go diagonally / straight ahead, and after 1.5 km of driving you reach the parking area. In principle you can drive further by car, but it’s forbidden — which we entirely endorse, because this is, after all, an oasis of peace.

An easy walk of the next 1.7 km may seem boring to some. The first part of the path is paved and runs mostly through an area of low vegetation, and then it comes back out onto the shore. The path leads you to a restaurant and a small harbour. From there it’s 250 m to the lake.

Lake Mir

In the southwestern part of Telašćica Nature Park lies Lake Mir (mir means “peace”). When you stand on its shore, it will be clear to you why it got such a name.

The lake is a depression that fills with seawater through micro-fissures, and due to its shallowness (6 m) and the evaporation effect, the water’s salinity is higher than that of the surrounding sea. It is 900 m long and 300 m wide.

The path that runs to the right along the lakeshore has, every so often, side branches that go uphill. What awaits you on that hill cannot be conveyed by photographs, and a description in words can only be informative. Since the meaning of life is not the collecting of information but of experiences, you really must experience this in person.

Strmac

On the outer side of Telašćica, the side facing the open sea, is Strmac. It is a range of imposing vertical cliffs that reach over 160 m in height. Only about a hundred metres separate them from the lake, so the edge of the lake could be the farthest point of a circular route. From the lake you can also continue southeast toward Lojišće beach, but we left that for another time.

From this point, a walking path leads back to the west along the edge of the cliffs. As the elevation rises, the views that open up become spectacular. The landscape is very dramatic and at moments harsh. In places the sea here is up to 85 m deep. This is the habitat of many plant and animal species, several of them endemic. The depths also hide very rare species. Here there is also a colony of red coral.

Grpašćak

Grpašćak is the highest peak of Telašćica. From the parking area where we left the car, a walking path leads up — barely a kilometre long with 130 m of elevation difference. But, if you prefer, you can get in the car and, via the “X”-shaped junction mentioned earlier, drive to the summit from the other side, here: 43.905561929963426, 15.133938507275136

Grpašćak greeted us as a construction site. Work was underway on renovating the fortress and building a presentation centre. We are not fans of presentation centres, because nature needs no presentation. It does that best itself. OK, they will probably present the nature park’s points of interest there — flora, fauna, geology… But with such content there usually comes a whole “fairground,” a travelling circus of human greed, bad taste and absurdity — cafés, generators, souvenirs, ice creams… All the things that don’t belong here. Fortunately, the construction site was inactive, so we just enjoyed the silence and our fascination with nature.

Grpašćak is one of those places where you could stay forever. Whichever way you turn, the views are spectacular!

To the east the view bursts open onto the Kornati. The southwest offers the hypnotic calm of the open sea with the outlines of Italy on parts of the horizon. The northwest laid out before us a forest backdrop that carried a note of something mythical and primordial. Jurassic Park is one association. The north opens up views of the Zadar archipelago. Across Lake Mir, Iž, Pašman and Ugljan, the gaze reaches all the way to the majestic Velebit!

On the circular concrete plateau / helipad, we welcomed the sunset. It was not one of those spectacular ones you get before the Bura, but here everything is exponentially more fascinating than usual. For who knows how many times, we sighed “Dugi otok is a wonder!”.

Other

Among the other things, it is certainly worth highlighting the rich archaeological sites from prehistory, antiquity, the Middle Ages and the modern era. From an Illyrian grave, burial mounds (gomile), a Roman villa rustica, the Church of St. Victor and the Church of St. Luke, to the remains of the Church of St. John in Stivanje polje. Fields, olive groves, forests… Telašćica has so much, and it is only a small part of Dugi otok. Dugi otok is a wonder!