Fast and furious: thrilling zip line draws visitors to Croatian hinterland

Lika, one of Croatia's least developed regions, is best known for its UNESCO-listed Plitvice Lakes national park and for being the birthplace of the inventor Nikola Tesla. But a group of adrenaline junkies has sought to boost tourism in the area, often bypassed by visitors traveling to the Adriatic coast, by building what they say is the longest continuous zip line in Europe.

Now open for its third busy summer season, the Pazi Medo (Beware of the Bear) zip line draws up to 5,000 people each year for a thrilling ride over forests, hills and a picturesque valley in the Adriatic hinterland. "Our zip line is 1,700-metre (1.06 miles) long which makes it the longest in Europe. There are faster ones, but not with such length," said Lana Ivanisevic, who looks after sales at the rural site in Rudopolje, some 35 kilometers away from the Plitvice Lakes.

She said the zip line's fastest speed recorded was 120 kilometers/hour, and tourists from Europe, Asia, North America have come to try out the 280 kunas ($43) ride. "We see our project as a driver of tourism in Lika. Our plan...is to build the longest zip line in the world with a length of 3,000 meters and combine this with other activities like cycling and kayaking," Ivanisevic said.

Other ziplines in Europe include a mile-long ride in north Wales where thrill seekers can reach speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. A zip line park in the Dolomite mountains offers a 3.2 kilometer ride divided into sections. Ivanisevic said that out of some 12,000 runs, there had been just one "minor incident" recently in which two people were "lightly injured due to a communication error between operators", adding safety was a priority. ($1 = 6.5771 kuna)

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