Panorama Photo

While descending the switchbacks of the road to Krstac I was thinking at the first time that I was here, in 2003. I was coming from north and, after Dubrovnik, I felt a definite change. The traffic suddenly disappeared, and it seemed to be going towards a land of nobody, one of those territories that in ancients maps were marked "Hic sunt leones" - here there are the lions. I reached Kotor without having yet found a bank or a postal office, where to change some local money. It was already late afternoon, and I was really hungry, when I decided to try with one of the few shops, showing some euros, just in case they accepted or changed them. «Where is the problem?» was the answer «this is precisely our currency, namely, the Montenegro Euro». As I got to know later, years before they had also gone through the "Montenegro Deutsche Mark".
Above Kotor I discovered a wonderful road, carved in the rock with 25 perfect switchbacks (I am not sure by now... the number should be checked), a perfect gradient and a perfect sense of the panorama.
«I cannot believe this», I was thinking while pedalling up thanks to my new stock of energy, «a road like this can have been built only by the Austrians, those who build Stelvio, Spluga and so on».
I still consider this road one of the most beautiful that I ever rode. It would be worth to go down the whole Adriatic coast, were it only for the sake of getting to know this jewel.
Higher up in Krstac, a group of scant houses at 945 m, below the final ascent to the Lovcen (the Lion), I was to learn that the road was indeed built by the Austrians, since the Krstac saddle was precisely the border of the Empire and of the Reign of Montenegro. From Krstac, if you turn left you reach the village of Njegusi, with the house-museum, nearly a pilgrimage site, where the prince, bishop, poet and national hero Petar II Petrovic Njegos was born. If you turn right, you will skirt the Stirovnik, 1749 m, highest summit of the Lovcen, thus arriving in sight of the Jezerski Vrh, 1660 metres, topped by the immense mausoleum where Petar II Petrovic Njegos rests. Subsequently, you can go down the other side, reaching Cetinje, old capital of Montenegro and birthplace of Jelena Petrovic Njegos, later Elena del Montenegro or Elena di Savoia, last but one Queen of Italy. These are not places for the faint-hearted, and even less for the anarchist...
I could go on for pages telling stories about these places, but I know that at this point the patience of the Betrachter is already exhausted: maybe I will better go on in some future work!