Durmitor |
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11 November 2025 - Žabljak
Today was mostly about studying for the DELF A2 exam Saturday, but I also did some driving and running. After the morning in Kotor I drove to Risan, which is the oldest city on the bay, dating from pre-Roman times. I visited a museum set on the site of a 2nd century villa where a number of floor mosaics remain, and interestingly run by the University of Warsaw, that is, Poland. Perhaps someday I will visit the acropolis. Then it was on and up, up, up into the mountains. An old Montenegran tale says that, when god finished creating the world, he looked down and noticed that he still had some rocks in his sack, so he threw them down to earth and created Montenegro. The drive from the Bay of Kotor to Nikšić definitely supports that. The bare rock with little scrub is quite beautiful though. Heading north beyond Nikšić things get wetter and there starts to be grass and then trees until nearly 5000 feet above sea level one reaches Žabljak and the mossy rainforest of Durmitor National Park. After checking into the house of the Serbian family I'm staying with tonight I ran out into the park and around Crno Jezero, where one can see Durmitor reflected in the lake when it's not shrouded in cloud as it was today. C'est la vie. The run through the forest really reminded me of Norway expect that I had to carry a rock to bop the wild dogs on the head with when they got too aggressive. Interestingly, the lake is bifurcated. That is, it only connects sometimes and the two parts drain into different rivers - the upper park through caves into the Piva, and the lower, larger part into the Tara. I really wanted to strip down and go for a swim, but the busloads of Chinese tourists around the lake inhibited that particular desire.
