Star struck

I went to Stari Bar hoping for a drink but instead found the original city of Bar. 4 km outside the current Bar, at the foot of Mount Rumija, on top of Lundža Hill , lie the ruins of old Stari Bar.
Destroyed by the occupying Romans in the 3rd C, it was rebuilt by the Venetians, the Serbians, the Hungarians and the Ottoman Empire. The Montenegrans took it back from the Turks in 1877 by smashing the aquaduct supplying the city. (As you can see, it looks pretty vulnerable.)
The 1979 earthquake further jumbled the ruins of the 240 buildings that used to fill the site.
I paid my 1 Euro to walk around looking at individual remaining walls belonging to the old stone houses, fort, churches, a Turkish bath, town gates and the clock tower. There’s also the aqueduct which seems to be in better condition than anything else.
Gradually the place is being rebuilt, or should I say reconstructed as the evidence suggests a healthy appreciation of the tourist income and the desire for Disneyland. The walk from the carpark to the entrance is lined with knick-knack stalls and restaurants, (but no bars,) - as it must have been during its working life so many years ago.
Incidently, Montenegrans are amongst the tallest people in the world - yes, even taller than the Dutch. So much so that they are disproportionally represented on American basketball teams, where one stands 6ft 11" in his socks. Certainly many of the males I saw where well over 6ft.
There again, that might be just a tall story.Weiterlesen