Crkvice

Crkvice sits high on the flank of Mount Orjen, roughly 940 metres above the Bay of Kotor and a world away from the water. The approach is a slow climb on narrow roads through limestone country behind Risan, and the change is abrupt: the coast's palms and oleander give way to beech woods, sinkholes and bare grey rock. On clear days the bay glitters far below; on many days the cloud simply sits on the plateau and stays there. The village is best known for its weather. Crkvice holds the European record for annual rainfall, receiving an average of over 4,900 millimetres a year and, in exceptional years, far more than that. It is one of the wettest inhabited places on the continent. Warm, moist air pushed inland off the Adriatic hits the Orjen wall 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. People did live here, and not so long ago. Austro-Hungarian engineers drove a military road across these uplands in the late nineteenth century and built barracks to garrison them, and a small civilian community grew alongside. What remains now is a scatter of roofless stone houses, cisterns, cracked walls and the rusting bones of the military buildings, with only a handful of seasonal residents. Grass, moss and beech saplings are taking the rest back. 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. There is nothing here in the way of services, so carry water, food and warm layers whatever the forecast says. Late spring through early autumn is the practical window; outside it, fog, rain and snow can close the plateau entirely. It suits hikers, photographers and anyone curious about how quickly a place can empty out.