Skradinski Buk

Skradinski Buk is the best-known and largest travertine waterfall on the Krka River, a chain of roughly seventeen cascading steps spread over about 800 metres, with a total elevation drop of around 45.7 metres and a width that widens from roughly 200 to 400 metres depending on the season's water flow. The falls' broad, terraced pools have made the site a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Sibenik, only a short drive from the town.

Swimming in the Skradinski Buk basin, once one of the most photographed wild-swimming spots in Croatia, has been banned since 1 January 2021. The restriction was introduced to protect the living travertine itself: the barriers are built up gradually by moss, algae and mineral deposits, a fragile process that was being worn down by the sheer number of people bathing, wading and touching the formations every day. Visitors can still walk the wooden footbridges and boardwalks along the falls, but entering the water is no longer permitted.

Along the banks stand a cluster of restored watermills, fulling mills and stamping mills (mlinice) that once used the river's drop to grind grain and process wool and hides. Several of these old mill buildings have been converted into souvenir shops and a tavern, while others now serve as small exhibition spaces showing the tools and techniques once used on this stretch of the Krka.

A short distance from the falls is where that same water power was put to more ambitious use. The original hydroelectric plant here, commissioned on 28 August 1895 and known as HE Krka, later renamed Jaruga I, is widely cited as the second hydroelectric power plant in the world, going into operation only days after the Adams Power Plant at Niagara Falls. Because Niagara's own long-distance transmission line was not connected until 1896, the plant on the Krka — built on Nikola Tesla's polyphase alternating-current system and linked by an 11.5-kilometre transmission line — is often credited with making Sibenik one of the first cities in the world to run on a complete AC generation-and-distribution network. A successor plant, Jaruga II, was built in 1904 and remains in operation today, making it one of the oldest hydroelectric facilities still generating power anywhere in the world.