kopacki rit nature park

On the East part of Croatia is a Nature park called Kopački Rit. It is situated close to Osijek, the biggest town in Slavonia. The park is home of 298 birds species, some of them you can see only here. A short drive from Osijek and you are at Reception building of park where you take a boat trip included in the price for a one hour. During the worm weather it is a lots of mosquitoes and some protection is required. You can also use the bike or walk, take a drive to the other edge where is an old hunting reserve built by the Hapsburg's but now unfortunately quite ruined. You can have a good home food in small restaurants in the village you will be driving thru.

like every place where danube is allowed to make its imprint... nature is amazing. marshes, swamps, canals, forests, planes, rivers... wildlife diverse and you cannot miss it. deer, boars, foxes, all kinds of birds and fishes. if you want to relax and enjoy the nature... a great place to visit!

This reserve is a nice experience, nature is really beautifuly. Best time of the year for a visit is Sept when there are less mosquitoes and birds start to congregate and prepare for a migration. There are several ways to experience reserve - cycle, walk, electric boat. We took the boat which took us to the marsh and it is really worthwhile. The only thing, everything was flooded, so we actually didn't see many birds: just the cormorans who live there full time (having somehow transfer from Asia) and some heron and ducks and swans. The guide told us that if there are no floods and we come at the right time when birds already gather in the marsh before their flight we could see them in thousands. So this was a good part. Then we went (by car) to the northern part of the park, where there is supposed to be some old country manor house and educational center, and that was kind of disappointment. Few houses, educational centre is a room with a tv set where nice lady from the gift shop offered to show an educational video about a reserve to the kids. Nothing special. No coffee shop, no refreshments.But the nature is beautiful and there are authentic villages around (Kopacevo, Karanac) with inns where one can have a meal.

This is a beautiful reserve along the Danube River. We were there on a chilly grey November day and essentially had the place to ourselves which made it even more special. We went out on the lake with a guide and saw a number of bird species, including the white tail eagles. This park boasts 298 bird species, 55 mammals, 450 plants, 44 fish, and 22 mosquito!On the other edge is an old hunting reserve built by the Hapsburg's and later used by Tito and unfortunately looted during the war. The exterior can still evoke a spirit of an elegant time.

Kopački Rit nature park is breathtaking beauty, it definitely visit if you have the chance. We were lucky (water level and a quiet day) to see parts of KP which are normally not included. Photos will tell you more than our words. Enjoy.

We only had an afternoon walk with dogs and it was a lovely place to roam. Cycle paths go there from Osijek, it should even be possible to rent a bike to use in the park, more info on the official web site of the attraction. The path is labelled and you can get all sorts of useful info from the boards (available in Croatian, Hungarian and English). As for wild life, we managed to see some birds, squirrels and even catch a glance of some deer (in spite of the dogs). General advice is to go early morning if your aim is to watch game. There is a castle near by (Tikveš) with a small souvenir shop. There should be rooms to let in the area, but I do not think there is a proper hotel. This is by far the nicest thing Osijek has to offer so it is worth a visit, even if just for a stroll in the woods, which is exactly what we did. Reasonably close are riding club and rowing club. Two nice restaurants are very near by. I highly recommend.

If you will be visiting Osijek, Croatia, Kopacki Rit is one of the few things to do in the area. I have been there several times, and can recommend the following.First, it is free to drive through the Park. By car it is fairly small, but you can go to several lookouts to look at birds, or go to the restaurant Kormoran in the middle of the park, which is very good.Second, the last time we were there we did a two-hour canoe trip with a guide. This costs only 150 Kuna per person and can be organized a day or two in advance. Apparently, this activity is not very well known (5 groups in 2 years, all foreigners). This is clearly the best thing that we have done so far in the park, and I highly recommend it. The best time to canoe is in April when the water is high. The water level varies unpredictably, and when we there in the summer, it was fortunately at one of its highest levels.Third, you can rent bikes. In about 30 minutes you can get to the Tikves "castle". They told us not to go off the main roads with their bikes, and biking on the paved road was not super exciting. There are some smaller dirt roads that the locals use, so I presume that it would be ok to take these as well (next time I will see).Lastly, there is a cafe-bar at the entrance that is nice.

The nature is unbelievable! You can not imagine that in a heart of Europe you can experience such wideness.I took a tour with an electric boat (9,00 EUR). Shame that management of the Kopački rit did not take an effort to allow guests to step much deeper in nature and feel themselves as a part of it. I presume that some kind of private tour or tour with smaller motorboat is better option.Cheapest option worth considering is walking tour across bank with strong binoculars. You can spot some amazing sights.

There are no words to describe it. Just go, you won't regret it.Choose one of several activities - bird watching, private tour with small motorboat or something else.People are nice, tour guides will answer all your questions.There isn't "best time to visit Kopacki rit". Each day is unique and you could enjoy it differently.

If you want to see the world where the men don't rule, go to wild teritory in the middle of Europe, in a small caunty Baranja where you'll have a big Holiday.

Wonderful! What else to say? The entrance fee isn't high, we had great weather conditions, it's just too bad we couldn't see many animals due to floods that were a few weeks ago...Advice:1) when visiting in summer, you better go there in the morning because there are less mosquitos.2) take some of the boat tours, it's amazing!

for a nature lover this was great experience; i was with my friends and we had so much fun studying about all those birds, frogs, turtles, stunning Slavonian nature, beautiful little boat that was giving us a ride through swamp and I actually felt like Bear Grylls :Pregards

Beautiful wildlife preserve..Visiting swamp and lakes vith the boat is magical..you get to see all kinds of birds up close.. Short drive from the city of Osijek make this park a perfect day trip in nature.

If you ever find yourself in these parts of the world, Nature Park “Kopacki rit” is definitely a place to spend a day in. It is not, however, a highly developed tourist place where restaurants, souvenir shops and children entertainment areas jump at you every way you turn. Also, it is not a circus or petting zoo where animals come out and pose for the camera. It is a nature park and its main purpose is preservation of the swamp area for wild birds and animals. Amazingly enough, the rangers are doing a good job here and the park has so far remained an untouched piece of pure nature.You have two places where you can buy tickets to the park, both reachable by car and with large parking lots. One is in the woods near Tikves Castle and the other is the reception area near the pier and the boats. As the other reviewer said, the original reception burned down and temporarily a container serves as replacement. Even though there are no toilets in the container, there are plenty of movable toilets in the parking lot next to the pier. My suggestion is to buy the tickets at the reception and proceed to the pier for a boat ride. It is difficult to use only words and properly describe the beauty and serenity of the place, so I have attached several photos taken during our boat ride. Our visit was in March and the trees were still without leaves, but I really loved it and am looking forward to coming back some other time in the year. After the boat ride you can go and visit the Tikves woods with the castle. The castle used to be a hunting lodge for various people (Tito being one), but during the last war it was broken into and interior destroyed. There are plans to make it into a hotel in the future. It is connected to rather newish building which was built during the president Tito’s time when foreign presidents would visit to go hunting (supposedly there was a rule which prevented two presidents to sleep under the same roof, so they had to build an additional building connected to the castle itself). Even though it is forbidden to go freely walking around the swamp area of the nature park, there is at least one nature trail you can follow from Tikves castle and the staff highly recommends taking it since you can enjoy unspoiled nature and maybe even encounter wild animals in their natural habitat.

Relatives wanted to take us out for the day, so they took us here - 23,000 square hectares of swamp.... whoops they call it a National Park. After a long drive, I needed to go to the toilet. Unfortunately, the administration building had burnt down and with it went the toilets. Nice cafe nearby that has a toilet. The area is all wetland swamps with white oak trees. We took the boat tour (1.2 km from the entrance) for one hour; we saw 4 water snakes, 1 eagle and lots of cormarants. Yes, you are right - cormarants are not native birds to Croatia but yet the park boasts about them! They destroy the trees on which they nest and they eat 'mega' amounts of fish can't be good for the ecology. Yet the guide insisted the ecology was well researched in the park and that it is well balanced stating that "the 21 species of mosquitos, 9 species of frogs, 12 species of fish and 3000 pair of cormarants are all part of the circle of life." From the boat tour, you drive 12 km to get the castle. A villa - yes, but a "castle" - not quite. You watch a 15 min. crappy video (nice time to close your eyes and rest for a while). Then the tour guide takes you on a walk 'around' the villa and guest house. The poor villa really needs major restoration work but instead the authorities decided to build a ridiculous modern 'extention' attached to the delapadated villa. Its sad....The tour guides and grounds staff are doing their best and are trying to make this swamp as touristically attractive as possible, but they still have a long way to go. Perhaps start by replacing 'senior management'? The cafe at the entrance was my highlight, the kids said seeing the snakes was cool other than that pretty average.