Ski Champion Praises Montenegro's Stunning and Unexplored Mountains
Balkan Travellers
The Durmitor Mountain in the northern part of the country was recently highlighted, after Boris Strel – who won the giant slalom world cup for Yugoslavia in 1981, skied down and commented on its best slope, Savin Kuk.
“This place has phenomenal conditions for winter sports, and with a little extra work this could become a top ski resort,” Strel told media.
Beside the 3,500 metre-long slope Savin Kuk, the Dormitor Mountain has two other exciting slopes: the 2,600 metre-long Štuoc and and Javorovača, which at 800 metres is perfect for those preferring short runs. The slopes are accessible through numerous funicular railways and ski lifts.
The mountain is also the home of the Durmitor National Park, a World Heritage Site, which includes the massif of Durmitor, the canyons of the Tara, Sušica and Draga rivers. The Tara River Canyon, 80 kilometres long and 1,300 metres deep, is the second largest in the world, after Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
“Nature has given this area beauty, and we need to take advantage of it and invest,” Strel concluded.
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Useful Reads
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Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro (2007) | By Elizabeth Roberts
Although released just in 2007, Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro comes from a much older school of scholarship. With this much needed work, former diplomat Elizabeth Roberts has produced the newest and best introduction to the full history of a storied and sometimes inscrutable land the identity of which was formed equally by its forbidding mountains and balmy Adriatic coast- still the features most representative of Montenegro today and most enticing to its increasing number of foreign visitors.
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Photogalleries
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A Perfect Shot
Koprivshtitsa Fair, Bulgara. Photographs by Neva Micheva
In Homo Urbanus Europeanus, exhibited May 9-24 in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, Jean-Marc Caracci presents his photographs of people in the urban environment of European capitals.
RED&WHITE SOFIA. On the 1st of March Bulgarians say goodbye to the winter. They buy each other red&white threads to carry around until they see a stork and spring can begin. Photography by Lode Desmet
BULGARIA D'OR: The Bulgarian countryside, patinated with the noble golden dust of the autumn. Photographs by Lode Desmet
360 degrees Bulgaria, an exhibition by photographer Alexandar Ivanov, is on display at the Sea Garden in Varna until August 28. It will be shown at Plovdiv’s Central Square from Sept 5.
The exhibition Photographs of a Trip Through Bulgaria by Hungarian photographer András Balla can be seen in Sofia's Hungarian Cultural Institute, at Aksakov 16 Street, until August 22
Instant Spring in Sofia | Photographs by Lode Desmet
Off-the-season Beauty of Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast | Photographs by Adelina Iliev
Bulgaria's Northern Black Sea Coast
Photographs by Albena Shkodrova
excellent smugs
