Summer 2013 and Spring 2014 The small villages of Al’Ayn and Ash Sharayjah perch on the side of a deep ravine; both carefully hoard the winter rainwater that runs off the rocky, rolling plateau behind small dams. The water is then run round narrow, cliffside terraces in the ancient falaj system of irrigation channels. Many of these are now…
Tag: Mountains
Beyond Bukumirsko Jezero
The last few kilometres of the winding road from Podgorica to Bukumirsko Jezero (Lake) has been recently cleared of snow and debris by a small bulldozer. The lake is reached down a stony track which runs to some small summer farms (Katuns) and wooden cabins; it looked, surprisingly, quite small and dull even in the…
The Prokletije Mountains
The tourist town of Plav, surrounded by blossoming plum orchards and set next to its pretty lake, and the smaller, more prosaic Gusinje sit beneath the Prokletije mountains within a broad valley joined by the meandering river Ljuča. The mountain range forms a natural barrier with Albania to the east and Kosovo to the north. Like…
Into the Kučka Krajina Mountains
The road to tiny Bukumirsko Jezero (Lake) high in the Kučka Krajina mountains, runs north from Podgorica for some 40km, passing the small villages of Ubli and Kržanja. The road on April 29th is blocked by a lens of lumpy snow on a north facing section about five kilometres from the lake; so I never make it…
Ostrog White, Durmitor Dark, Biogradska Gora Light
The fast road from Podgorica to the large town of Nikšić runs up the south side of the Zeta valley and gives a distant view of the Ostrog monastery, white against the high, dark cliff. The monastery is a principal place of pilgrimage within the Serbian Orthodox Church and also much visited by tourists. A smooth road from…
Biogradska Gora – Spring Melt
The path up to the lake on 11th April was, in contrast to my last visit, almost clear of snow. Plants were up in the leaf litter under the high forest. White butterbur (Petasites albus) was most numerous but the vivid blue hepatica (Hepatica nobilis) was more eye-catching. Wood anemone (Anemone nemerosa) and a borage species were…
The Komovi
The mountain road from Kolasin to Andrijevica passes through the small village of Mateševo and then follows the river Drčka, a tributary of the Tara, up the valley to Trešnjevik Pass. I stopped when the road started to hairpin and the road became more a bobsleigh run with walls of snow where the ploughs had cut there way…