Crkvice

Crkvice sits high on the flank of Mount Orjen, roughly 940 m above the Bay of Kotor. The approach is a slow climb on narrow roads through limestone country behind Risan, and the change from the coast is abrupt.

For its weather. It holds the European record for annual rainfall, averaging over 4,900 mm a year and far more in exceptional years, which makes it one of the wettest inhabited places on the continent.

Warm, moist air pushed inland off the Adriatic hits the wall of Orjen and unloads everything it carries. Winter brings snow measured in metres rather than centimetres, and drifts once cut the settlement off from the coast for weeks at a time.

Only a handful of seasonal residents. Austro-Hungarian engineers drove a military road across these uplands in the late 19th century and built barracks to garrison them, and a civilian community grew alongside; what remains is roofless stone houses, cisterns and the rusting bones of the military buildings.

Visitors come on foot. Crkvice is a waypoint for walkers crossing Orjen between the villages above Kotor and the higher summits, and the ruins make a memorable break in a long day out — quiet, damp and unlike anywhere else in Montenegro.

Water, food and warm layers whatever the forecast says, because there are no services at all. Late spring through early autumn is the practical window; outside it, fog, rain and snow can close the plateau entirely.