LAKE BIOGRADSKO - MONTENEGRO

Visiting Lake Biogradsko at the Biogradska Gora National Park in the vicinity of Kolasin, and hiking around it through its magnificent forest, was one of the highlights of our vacation.

This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the Park:

"Although it is the smallest of four National Parks in Montenegro, Biogradska Gora National Park contains great diversity of flora and fauna. There are 26 different habitats of plants with 220 different plants, 150 kinds of birds, and 10 kinds of mammals live in this Park and in its forest, there are 86 kinds of trees and shrubs. In the waters of the park exist three kinds of trout and 350 kinds of insects. One of the unique features of the park is its virgin forest, Biogradska Gora (16 km²) with trees over five hundred years old. In the very heart of Biogradska's virgin forest is Biogradsko Lake, the largest glacier lake in this National park. The most common tree species around the lake are European Beech, Sycamore Maple and European Ash, and on the slopes Beech and Silver Fir."

We walked slowly and it took us twice the time to circumference the lake, almost three hours - it really was like being in paradise. Those marvelous tall, very tall tress, many hundreds of years old! The forest is untouched and undisturbed, the ancient trees are just left to die in peace,  crash down and fertilize the soil.

Many small creeks with incredibly rich vegetation along them and lovely pebbles in many sizes and colors crisscross the area.

Apart from an occasional bird call, the croaking of a frog, the splash of a fish in the lake or of a lonely woodpeckers tapping it was very quiet. 

We found this patch with leaves as big as umbrellas.

The sun was shining through the trees portraying a beautiful play of light and shadow and the sky was peeking in between in many shades of blue.

A small variety of different wild flowers still showed their full bloom at this late season.

There are only very few virgin forests remaining in Europe and one of the most important is Biogradska Gora.

The lake was shallow in many places, it is waiting for the spring waters the streams will bring from the mountains to fill up again.

Clean and clear water contained many hues of blue, green and turquoise, and where the trees touched the shoreline the color darkened.

Half way around a gentle breeze began to blow which suddenly increased to a strong wind and the dry yellow autumn leaves went sailing down by the thousands - then a minute later the sun was back.

I am thankful for the trees, the sun, the lake, the sky, the plants and the colors, which all have been so good to me and satisfied my senses and made me happy at this day! My dear husband included in the list! 
I have saved all this in my memory - for later, when I will need it!

Photos by Uri Eshkar.