From Mokra Gora, we made our way to our last stop (for now) in Serbia, Zlatibor.
The citys busy season is winter, since it is a ski resort. Tall hotel buildings and little villages of huts dominate the landscape in the valley, which is surrounded by tallish hills.
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| Really the only thing worth taking a photo of in the town itself |
The tallest of those is Tornik, 1496 meters high. From the city, you can ride the Zlatibor Gold Gondola Lift, with 9km the longest gondola lift in the world, to the top. The ride takes almost 30 minutes. It is relatively new, operating since January 2021.
Following the credo of "only where you went on foot have you really been", my human did walk up one afternoon, but also took the lift the next day to enjoy the ride, which really is quite nice. The views from the top, on this - thankfully - sunny day, were gorgous.
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| Not normally a sucker for souvenirs, this tin cup she absolutely had to have |
After this brief visit to Serbia, we crossed the border to Montenegro, without any hold up this time.
The Durmitor National Park is high on the list of things to see in this country, and this is where we went first.
Zabljak is the base for all hiking activities in the Durmitor range and is beautifully situated with mountains all around. Here, one can actually speak of mountains since 48 of them are higher than 2000 meters.
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| Our panorama for the first night in the park, just before a heavy downpour |
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| And the view after the second night, just after a heavy downpour |
18 glacial lakes are also part of the park, with Black Lake being the easiest to reach and therefor the most visited.
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| Black Lake |
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| Snake Lake |
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| Oh, intriguing... |
Unsurprisingly, my human wanted to climb the highest mountain not only in the range, but in the country, Bobotov Kuk, 2422 meters high.
You might imagine her disappointment when the lady in the info center told her that all mountains were "closed", due to snow.
Although she should know, since it is her job to know such things, my human obtained a second opinion from one of the rangers at the entrance to Black Lake. According to him, all trails were open.
So the next morning, she took those differing views to the test and headed for the summit of Bobotov Kuk.
First through a beautiful forest, then onto rockier ground, through valleys and over low passes, she reached some small snowfields, closing in on the mountain.
The last bit was a rather steep slope covered in relatively soft snow. Now, she gathered some experience with those kinds of conditions lately, so one step at a time, up the slope she went to reach the summit pyramid half an hour later and the top 30 minutes after that.
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| See the needle sticking out to the right, thatˋs Bobotov Kuk |
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| Too early for beer, but thanks anyway |
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| All right, fog, you have one hour! Get a move on! |
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| A plaque honoring Jovan Lausevic, the first Montenegrino to climb in this range, leaving notes on his trails |
With clouds slowly moving in around her, she was lucky enough to hit a time window where there still was a view.
So much for closed mountains.
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| These guys, and two of their friends, made the three hour trip to the base of the mountain with a group of five Belgian guys |
Before moving on, we drove up to Sedlo Pass for another view of the surroundings. The drive up was actually more interesting than what we got on top, but that had to do with the weather and limited visibility.
The same was true for the Tara Canyon View Point hiking trail. With rain and fog hanging in the air, the views were dulled here as well.
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| We were pretty happy with our parking spot for the night, though! |
The next couple of days, we spent in and around the Biogradska National Park, with its six glacial lakes and Crna Glava, 2139m, as the highest point.
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| Looking across Pesica jezero to Crna Glava |
The area has been declared a protected zone in 1886, only 14 years after Yellowstone became the first National Park in the world.
Most of the park is inaccessible ancient forest, crisscrossed by many streams, mostly feeding into the Tara river.
As we have gotten used to by now, the weather wasnˋt really our friend; it either rained or stormed for most of our stay here.
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| Biogradska jezero, the largest of the glacial lakes in the park |
It was hard to stand up straight on this ridge, the wind was blowing so hard
Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, with its 150.000 inhabitants, lies some 70km south-east of the park.
You get there via a nice, new highway, running through a multitude of tunnels.
The highway was practically deserted in our direction, we literally had three cars overtake us. Not much more was going on across on the other side.
When we got into the city, we knew why. All the available cars were either parked here, in second and third rows, higgledy-piggledy all over the place, or driving on the congested roads, enthusiastically beeping their horns at everything that moved.
Eventually we found a relatively good spot for me to hang out, while my human went off to explore the city on foot.
In contrast to most of the country, Podgorica lies in a relatively flat area, with the rivers Ribnica and Moraca running through it, necessitating a good handful of bridges.
The oldest of those is the Old Bridge Ribnica, which was built during the Roman times and underwent major reconstruction in the 18th Century.
The newest and most futuristic one is the Millennium Bridge. It is 173 meters long and cost somewhere around 7 million Euros.
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| Millennium Bridge |
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| Gazela Bridge |
Also noteworthy is the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, consecrated in 2013, after 20 years of construction.
According to the "Orthodox Arts Journal", it is one of the most interesting Orthodox buildings of our time.
Lots of small parks are scattered around the city, so wherever you go, at least part of the way you can make through one of them, which, hear hear, on a sunny and warm day, is quite pleasant.
The city center consists of a handful of streets around Independence Square, but it is all rather modern and doesnˋt really feel like the center of anything.
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| Church of St. George |
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| Monument to the Fallen of the 2nd WW |
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| 17th Century Ottoman clock tower |
To abscond the crazy traffic and the weekend crowds, we moved 20km out of the city to a small horse "farm" (only three horses), which was recommended to us by Caro and Schimmi, friends you have been acquainted with last year in Austria.
Here we just hung our for a bit, I was treated to a proper cleaning, played with the three dogs and two cats, and just enjoyed the - for now - sunny weather.
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