FRUŠKA GORA Vojvodina’s beauty, alone on the plain This mountain, which was once an island in a large sea, preserves its monasteries, Europe’s largest linden forest and the eastern imperial eagle that soars above it ONCE UPON A TIME, MANY MILLIONS OF YEARS ago, an is- land existed in the Pannonian Sea. When the sea dried up, that island remained as a lone guardian of Vo- jvodina. It was so beautiful and had such cultural and historical impor- tance that it became the first of Ser- bia’s five national parks. Fruška Go- ra boasts the highest concentration of linden forests in Europe, and in the forests here you can find 30 rare species of orchids, while Fruška Gora remains the only nesting ground of the eastern imperial eagle, the most endangered species on the world’s
“red list”. Fruška Gora’s lanes are al- so wine trails, and at these isolat- ed wineries, many of which are ar- ranged as old Srem homesteads, you can experience the time and spirit of the old Srem folk with a glass of high-quality wine. It was on this lonely mountain, in the endless greenery of decidu- ous forests, that around 16 monas- teries were erected between the 16 th and 18 th centuries, in the Baroque style and that of the Moravian archi- tecture of medieval Serbia. It is be- cause of them that Fruška Gora is al- so dubbed the Serbian Athos. There used to be many more monasteries,
but the most famous among those that have survived the destruction are Krušedol, Novo Hopovo, Grgeteg and Jazak. Irig Wreath represents the peak of Fruška Gora, but another peak, Stražilovo, has served as inspira- tion for poets to write verses. The hill above the town of Sremski Kar- lovci, packed with seemingly endless greenery, is guarded by great Serbian poet Branko Radičević, who visited it often. Miloš Crnjanski also dedicat- ed verses to this place and the village of Radičević in his work Stražilovo, one of the most beautiful poems ev- er written in the Serbian language.
98 | Srbija » Serbia
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