Murino

Murino is a small town in the north-east of Montenegro, on the Lim river between Andrijevica and Plav, in a valley closed in by the Visitor and Zeletin ridges. It works as the local centre for a scattering of mountain villages: a school, a few shops and cafés, a bridge over green water, and houses climbing the slopes on either side. The pace is slow, and Orthodox and Bosniak families have long lived here side by side, which shows in the mix of church and mosque, food and everyday speech. The Lim is the town's spine. It leaves Lake Plav a few kilometres upstream and runs north as one of the clearest rivers in the region, edged by meadows, old mills and trout pools. Above the valley the pastures of Visitor carry katuns through the summer, and the road east climbs to Plav and Gusinje, the gateway to Prokletije National Park and the amphitheatre of the Grbaja and Ropojana valleys, where the highest and sharpest peaks in the country stand along the Albanian border. Murino also carries a recent and painful memory: the village and its bridge were struck during the NATO air campaign in 1999, and six civilians, among them three children, were killed. A memorial in the town marks it, and travellers are often taken aback to come across such a thing in so peaceful a setting. What a visitor finds otherwise is straightforward mountain hospitality — homemade cheese and cicvara, lamb, river trout, and hosts who assume you will stay for coffee. It suits hikers and drivers working their way between Kolašin, Plav and the Prokletije trails rather than anyone looking for a resort. Late spring to early autumn is the season, when the pastures are open and the high routes clear; winters are long, snowy and very quiet.