Croatia is a nation of contradictions.

On Sunday we went to Skradin, a small town on the Krka River, just behind Šibenik, to visit Vina Bibich, run by Alen, a local wine producer and chef about whom we had heard great things. We wanted to try the local red wine, debit. Unfortunately everything is still closed this early in the year.

Skradin has a long history; originally it was a Roman trading town. Today it’s the best place to catch a boat to the Krka National Park, and the Krka Waterfalls, up river.

After a quick coffee in Skradin’s sunny square, we drove into the Park.

The Park’s authorities have, over recent years, renovated the old mill buildings surrounding the falls into an ethno-village. In the summer guests can see the flour being made, chat with the donkeys or have a trout lunch. The rivers around Split provide several places for very fresh trout. Other favorites of ours are in the town of Trilj and at another renovated mill; Radmanove Mlinice.

To walk amongst the falls wooden duck boards and bridges are provided, similar to Plitvice Lakes but on a smaller scale. Its possible to swim below the final waterfall.

The Croatian contradiction became evident when we came upon some further old buildings with a plaque. The text said before us was the ruins of the world’s second hydro-electric generator – the first opened in Buffalo, up-state New York a few days before; both were completed in 1895. Even more amazingly, the Croatian dam was the first in the world to provide electricity – it powered Šibenik’s streetlights about a year before those in Buffalo. Nikola Tesla was responsible for the design of the plant. Born an ethnic Serb in what is now the Lika Region of Croatia, he is claimed by both Croatia and Serbia.

At the at end of the 19th Century this remote part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on the cutting edge of technology – beating Germany, France and England to hydro-electricity – yet my grandmother’s village nearby has never received electricity or had modern plumbing. And driving to the Park you see the still-ruined houses of the barbaric ethnic conflict from 15 years ago. Primitivism and Modernism side by side.

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