Heading to Montenegro

After a short night's rest, we ate breakfast and were back on the bus by 9am.  Each morning we start our bus ride with morning prayers and a reflection offered by Fr. Djokan and/or Fr. Wright.  On this particular morning, Fr. Wright offered reflections on what it means to be a pilgrim, an exile temporarily in residence on earth.  As Bede tells us, there is a linking of heaven and earth by means of pilgrimage.  Our proper home is heaven, and that's what we're heading toward in this life.  We live in the present - it is our baptismal privilege to be pilgrims in our own time and be one with the saints who have gone before us on our journey to heaven, but it is looking to the future which is the nature of our pilgrimage.   Seeing evidence of such strong faith from centuries ago in the holy places we are visiting as well as the traditions continued among the monks, nuns, and even my fellow pilgrims, remind me of the richness of diversity in the humanity God has created and deepen my own faith in the one God we all worship...

Our first stop of this Tuesday morning was at Monastery Mileseva, founded between 1234 and 1236 by the Serbian King Vladislav.  It is situated in the Mileseva river valley, and is one of the most important Serbian spiritual centers - in 1235 Vladislav moved the relics of his uncle, St. Sava, here.  Here is a photo of the river from the bus window - across the river is Bosnia...

Inside the monastery...

St. Sava on the wall to the left...

St. Michael the Archangel - the original one often seen in icon reprints...WOW!

A beautiful icon in the monastery museum...

And vestments...

More monastery hospitality - Turkish coffee and something like doughnuts, but not quite (and I can't remember what they're called).  And it was sitting around this table that Fr. Wright answered our questions about the icon of the three-handed Mother of God.  Learning about the history and legends of such things in their proper context makes them much more memorable!

When we started this pilgrimage I really had no concept of what I would be seeing - in the churches, in the culture, and in the landscape.  After our visit at Mileseva we got back on the road, heading toward the border of Montenegro.  I didn't realize how mountainous Serbia and Montenegro are.  The further we drove, the more dramatic they became.  Here are some more photos from the bus window:

Right before crossing the border into Montenegro, we stopped at a roadside cafe for lunch.  One reason we did this was because of money challenges.  Serbia uses Dinars and Montenegro uses Euros - and none of us had Euros!  And holding true to our pattern, we were at lunch twice as long as we had planned.  Here is a picture of those yummy tomatoes and cucumbers I mentioned earlier:

Here's a picture of me facing the road behind us - beautiful mountains in the background!

A rainstorm started brewing so we scurried back on the bus to begin our border crossing.  The border is interesting - first we crossed the Serbian border, and then a mile or two we stop for the Montenegran border guards.  I wonder what that land in between is called??? It was hailing by the time we got to the first guard station:

Here's the border guard on the bus stamping our passports that we were exiting Serbia - one of my more pleasant border crossing experiences...

And a few minutes later getting them stamped for arrival in Montenegro (not as friendly as the last guy)...

But the concern for swine flu reaches even the mountains of Montenegro!  Here's a survey they gave all of us:

And the mountains just kept getting higher and higher...

Our second monastery of the day was also along a river - Monastery Moraca and you guessed it - on the River Moraca.  This church was built in 1252 by Stefan Nemana, and legend has it that the special yellow stone with which it was built came from a far away place called Tusine, and the local people made a line tens of kilometers long to carry the stone from hand to hand to Moraca.  

Inside the monastery - absolutely gorgeous, and I think my favorite so far...

This is the only remaining fresco from the originals, before destruction by the Turks.  This is also a familiar icon of Elijah often replicated...

Fortunately we arrived at our hotel a little earlier, but still late - this time we had dinner at about 10pm... this is making for very weary travel, but driving through the mountains is unpredictable, and the weather caused us some delay.  

First Day in the Mountains of Serbia

Today, Monday, we boarded our new, more comfortable and spacious bus.  Fortunately, I was able to have two seats to myself so that I could spread out!  We also met up with our new bus driver for the week - Yousef.  Yousef doesn't speak English, but you can tell by his constant smile and the sparkle in his eyes that he is not only a masterful driver (which the pictures later will show) but also a kind and generous man.

We first drove to Valjevo, where we stopped for a mid morning coffee break.  It was sprinkling, but you can still see how charming the streets and cafes are.  This section of town is known as "Tesnjar."

Our first monastery visit was in Lelic (sounds like Lehlich), the "Serbian Jerusalem."  This is the town where St. Nikolai was born, and where he built the monastery in which he is buried.

Here we are inside the monastery.  Fr. Djokan translated for the priest, who gave us some history on St. Nikolai and the monastery in Lelic.  The inside is a holy feast for the eyes - beautiful frescoes and icons everywhere!  The casket contains the relics of St. Nikolai...

After visiting the monastery, we stopped in the gift shop, where we found lots of goodies for reasonable prices.  I bought a few icons, some monastery-made honey, prayer bracelets, and two votive holders.  I'm betting I don't buy many books this week - most of them are in Serbian!

Our next stop of the morning was at Monastery Celije, built in the 13th century, and is currently a women's monastery.  Here's a pic walking up to the gate:

The waters from this well are said to be healing waters - of course I drank a cup!

The drizzle finally stopped and the sun came out while we were there.  Here's a pic of Shelley with the nuns' residence in the background.

Shelley and I wandered out on our own, mainly to find the restroom, but the nun hosting our group shepherded us back into this building with the rest of our group.  It was clear she didn't like us being outside by ourselves, once everyone else was inside...

Here's a shot of the nun telling us about the monastery:

Here we are inside, where the nuns put together a hospitality table for us - Turkish coffee and water and nibbles - yum!

After we said goodbye to the nuns at Celije, we made our way down the road a bit to a place along the river for lunch.  I had grilled chicken and Sropska, which is a Serbian salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and white cheese.  Absolutely delicious!  What a great surprise for me to have delicious home-grown tomatoes so far from home and so early in the summer!  I couldn't get enough of this and ate it nearly everyday for lunch...

Fr. Wright and Louise at lunch:

A coffee break, two monasteries, and lunch - I'm sure you can guess that this took longer than noontime.  In fact, this group is a bit like herding cats...we've started nothing on time, and everything we stop for takes twice as long as the time budgeted.  My recollection is that we wrapped up lunch around 3:30 or 4.  But we still had another bus ride to yet another monastery before we were done for the day.  And this is where we began to realize just how skillful Yousef is - check out this road in the mountains.  There were portions not yet paved, and they were quite curvy!

Our last stop was at a newer monastery, St. Nikolai in Soko City, Ljubovija. It is currently used primarily as a retreat center, and the story behind this monastery is that the land  at this location was scheduled to be used for a toxic waste dump.  A bishop in Germany bought many acres of this land and created this monastery to prevent the toxic dumping.  What a beautiful gift!

After our visit here, we made the long drive through the mountains to our hotel for the night - Villa Romantika - on Mt. Zlatibor, 4000 ft. above sea level.  It was almost 11pm by the time we got there - ugh!  But the hotel staff had dinner waiting for us when we arrived, so we dropped off our bags and headed right down.   It was at dinner that Shelley and I discovered that today was Fr. Wright's 45th anniversary of his ordination - congratulations, Fr. Wright!  So glad to have shared an adventurous day with you on your anniversary!

Phew - how's that for a full day???