DESTINACIJA / DESTINATION
Here you can listen to the dragon breathing under Subra Mountain, drink a snow cocktail from an icy pit, and scream with terror at the adrenaline park, and you can season it all with chilled wine from the rock and prosciutto aged for two years ON THE ADRIATIC’S HIGHEST PEAK SECRETS AND LEGENDS OF THE MIGHTY ORJEN
very outset he revealed to us that it is right here, on Orjen, at an al- titude of 1,894 metres, that Veliki Kabao stands as the highest peak of the coastal Dinaric Alps and the en- tire coast, on both sides of the Adri- atic! Leading to it is the oldest pur- pose-built hiking trail in Montenegro, created during the middle of the sec- ond half of the 19 th century. Peculiar and packed with raw beauty, Orjen has hiking trails to suit everyone, and we set out along the easier one that extends from the village of Vrbanj. The trail leads to the so-called Snow Pit that’s locat- ed beneath the monumental Subra amphitheatre, representing the most interesting detail of the coastal Di- naric Alps. The amphitheatre was cre- ated by nature through glacial ero- sion, and within it is contained a gorge that’s known as the Dragon’s Throat. Many distinctive toponyms here have been named after dragons, and Saša enjoys talking about them. You might think twice before enter-
WHEN MY FRIEND TOLD ME THAT WE WOULD spend one of only four precious days by the sea engaged on the karst terrain of the Orjen mountain massif that towers over Herceg Novi, I wasn’t particu- larly pleased. On the contrary, I pret- ty much couldn’t stand her at that moment. However, as is usually the case, that brief excursion to anoth- er dimension turned out to be one of the best ideas. No matter how unbelievably
beautiful the mountain was, none of it would have been as interesting without an imaginative narrator. And we got the best – a Herceg Novi na- tive, probably the first trail ultrarun- ner in Montenegro, Saša Kulinović, who is probably wandering the crags of Orjen right now, as I write this article. He recounted to us legends of dragons and stories of unfulfilled love affairs, and spoke of the beau- ty of the mountain where he knows and loves every stone... And at the
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