Otočac lies in the Gacka valley, a green strip of meadow in the middle of Lika, the sparsely populated highland behind the Velebit mountains. The river Gacka is the town's treasure. It rises from limestone springs, runs cold and so clear that every stone shows on the bottom, and holds trout and grayling that draw fly fishermen from across Europe. In the town itself, the river passes between old stone houses and mills, with willows and ducks along the banks.
Otočac was a frontier town for centuries. In the sixteenth century the Habsburgs set up the Military Frontier here, settling soldier-farmers along the border with the Ottoman Empire, and the little fortified towns and watch towers of the area belong to that era. The cathedral and the old centre give it a quiet dignity, though the 1990s war left scars that you can still see in the surrounding villages.
On the bike the area is a pleasure because it is so empty. From Senj on the coast, the road climbs over the Vratnik pass, at roughly seven hundred metres, in a series of well-engineered bends, and drops onto the Lika plateau, where the air is cooler and the landscape opens into meadows, beech woods and scattered farmsteads. It is a natural route toward Plitvice Lakes, about an hour inland. The surface is mostly good, and traffic is light outside July and August. Beware of the bura wind on the pass, which can be violent in winter, and of black ice and snow in the cold months, since Lika is one of the coldest regions in Croatia.
Otočac is small, only a few thousand residents, but it has shops and a fuel station, with Senj and Gospić the nearest larger places if you need more choice. Local cooking is hearty: lamb, cheese, smoked ham and, of course, trout from the river, which many restaurants grill simply with olive oil. The best seasons are late spring and early autumn.