After a very local and delicious breakfast on our terrace in the 70-degree weather, we set off for the mountains. Our final destination goal was Durmitor National Park – with some planned stops along the way to break up the supposed four-hour drive. I was prepared for it to take at least six hours – and am happy I set those expectations. From the guidebook we knew we would begin with 25 hairpin turns up Mt. Lovcen (the Black Mountain that is the namesake of the country).
Little did we know that these turns would continue along a road the size of a bike path for the better part of three hours (some of which was in the pouring rain) leaving my stomach rather unhappy. The mountains continued the whole drive with few signs of civilization. All of the landscape was covered in rocks – so short of rock-farming we hypothesized that there wasn’t much in terms of agriculture business in this part of the country.
We eventually made it to what was supposed to be the half-way point, the Ostrg Monastery built high into a stone cliff. It is apparently one of the more holy places in the Orthodox Church and also rumored to be the hiding place of a Serb commander wanted for genocide. If you visit, make sure you walk backwards out of all of the doors. Dad – any explanation on this?
I was dreading the final 70km to the national park (the first three hours were also only 70k) but fortunately the rumors Clete heard of a newly constructed highway were true and we cruised to our 4-star hotel in the middle of nowhere in about an hour.
Little did we know that these turns would continue along a road the size of a bike path for the better part of three hours (some of which was in the pouring rain) leaving my stomach rather unhappy. The mountains continued the whole drive with few signs of civilization. All of the landscape was covered in rocks – so short of rock-farming we hypothesized that there wasn’t much in terms of agriculture business in this part of the country.
We eventually made it to what was supposed to be the half-way point, the Ostrg Monastery built high into a stone cliff. It is apparently one of the more holy places in the Orthodox Church and also rumored to be the hiding place of a Serb commander wanted for genocide. If you visit, make sure you walk backwards out of all of the doors. Dad – any explanation on this?
I was dreading the final 70km to the national park (the first three hours were also only 70k) but fortunately the rumors Clete heard of a newly constructed highway were true and we cruised to our 4-star hotel in the middle of nowhere in about an hour.
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