Cetinja
On the bus to Cetina I ran into 4 Swiss guys that I'd been seeing off and on since Kotor. They were just taking a day trip up to the masoleum of the "poet king" of Montenegro, King Peter II. The masoleum is on a hill in Lovcen National Park. We split a taxi and headed up.
To get to the monument you walk up through a tunnel in the mountain, which is a bit odd (I still don't understand why they had to make a tunnel?) On exiting you are greeted by a pair of huge stone statues of very stern looking women. Inside a gold-plated, domed room behind them there is also a sizable statue of the man himself, with an eagle at his back. The Swiss guys took advantage of the good accoustics to do some impromptu Tuvan-style throat singing. Down below there is that actual stone coffin, which is... well, creepy.
It was interesting to get a European view of all this from the guys, who all felt that the style of the statues was "nazi-ish". All this time I've really enjoyed seeing E. Europead style statues, as they're so different from the monuments we have in the states. I appreciated the minimalistic style of the building, as it seemed to give the spotlight to the spectacular view of the landscape from the mountain. Not a bad place to spend eternity, really.
The taxi driver took us back to Kotor that night since it was closer, and I got a room in the same building as the guys. We had bread and marmalade and cheese from a giant wheel they'd bought up at Lovcen. They also put on a sock puppet show from the balcony, and a silly magic show involving a TP-bosomed "lovely assistant" Nadia.
Then we hit the "old town". We were lucky enough to see the end of the "Montenegrin Narodne Frizerski" competition. Loud techno and hair cutting, woo hoo! The winner was a woman made up in a Zebra theme, with a crazy black and white evening dress and her belly painted in stripes.
To get to the monument you walk up through a tunnel in the mountain, which is a bit odd (I still don't understand why they had to make a tunnel?) On exiting you are greeted by a pair of huge stone statues of very stern looking women. Inside a gold-plated, domed room behind them there is also a sizable statue of the man himself, with an eagle at his back. The Swiss guys took advantage of the good accoustics to do some impromptu Tuvan-style throat singing. Down below there is that actual stone coffin, which is... well, creepy.
It was interesting to get a European view of all this from the guys, who all felt that the style of the statues was "nazi-ish". All this time I've really enjoyed seeing E. Europead style statues, as they're so different from the monuments we have in the states. I appreciated the minimalistic style of the building, as it seemed to give the spotlight to the spectacular view of the landscape from the mountain. Not a bad place to spend eternity, really.
The taxi driver took us back to Kotor that night since it was closer, and I got a room in the same building as the guys. We had bread and marmalade and cheese from a giant wheel they'd bought up at Lovcen. They also put on a sock puppet show from the balcony, and a silly magic show involving a TP-bosomed "lovely assistant" Nadia.
Then we hit the "old town". We were lucky enough to see the end of the "Montenegrin Narodne Frizerski" competition. Loud techno and hair cutting, woo hoo! The winner was a woman made up in a Zebra theme, with a crazy black and white evening dress and her belly painted in stripes.
posted by Ana at 6:44 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Ana
You followed the path I took in 1971. Plitvice jezere Split, Hvar and Dubrovnik. From Dubrovnik, I took a bus to Greece.
Sounds like you are having a great experience. I'm happy for you.
Laura
It seems to me that you do not like Croatia.
Well, it's not that I don't like Croatia. I loved Plitvice. And I really didn't see enough to judge it all. But the tourist-ridden beach towns were frustrating. Expensive, no one to practice the language with, and the quality of the food and lodging didn't improve with the prices.
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