Sveti Jure (1762m) – 3rd highest in Croatia
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Municipality | Location |
| Sveti Jure | 1762m | 1164m | Biokovo, Croatia | GPX |
On our 2nd day in Croatia, we drove from our hotel on Cielo island (by Trogir), and down the coastline to Makarska. Shortly after this town, we took the mountain road leading up to the Biokovo National Park entrance. After paying 50 Kuna per person, we drove up the narrow mountain road that runs all the way to Sveti Jure at 1762m (St. George in English) – the 3rd highest peak in the country.
There is of course no grace in driving a car up to a mountain top, hence we parked the car at 1600m, which give us 160 vertical meters on foot. This was not the way I wanted to approach this mountain, but once on the car road, you can either choose a long walk along the paved road, drive to the top, something in between, or like we did – hike from the parking at 1600m.
There are of course trails from the north, east and west, but the weather did not inspire us to a long and windy walk in the fog. And we didn’t have a map before we bought one at the national park visitor center at approx. 1200m. No way we would drive down, just to walk up again! We did however compensate for this by long walks to Dinara and Vaganski Vrh later in the week.
The path to the top has a rope as “handrail”. Not needed upon ascent, but makes things a bit easier upon descent. This path meets another path that encircles the summit. There is a TV antenna on the summit with a fence around it, and access is forbidden. We tried to talk our way inside, but to no avail. The park ranger on top was not in the mood for any kind of conversation.
We returned the same way down and I was tempted to hike Veliki Troglav (1658m) on the other side of the road. But as I didn’t know if it was illegal to hike outside official trails in the national park, I decided not to.
Instead, we drove down to the coast and rented a room in an apartment complex in the village Caklje – in the outskirts of Podgora. Wow, what a charming place!
Pictures from the trip:
