Kotor, Montenegro

Ladders~

Rung by rung, focus on the climb, don't look up or down...

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The hulking, shadowy structure is abandoned, almost by all - there is no graffiti or signs of inhabitance. You might be the only ones to come here since its last life ended and this new, shady one began. The decommissioned, cavernous rooms brood in pure darkness, their air thick with lost memories. The setting sun can't touch them. Empty shafts drop down to basements, who knows how far into the mountain rock.

You scramble past wooden beams and up a ladder, out a hatch and onto the roof, reborn into the golden light. The beauty all around - does it heighten this ruin, elevate it to beauty too, by dint of its adjacency? Or is it an ugly scar of men on a pristine landscape?

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Another (alleged) ladder, at an older fort, this one scorched in the sun. It's a rusty frame, leaning against the back wall of the castle, barely half the height of the window hole you must scooch through, if you want to slip in the back way and avoid the entrance fee. You wound your way up an hour of hairpin turn-slopes, loose stones underfoot - this ladder won't stop you getting up into this fort. You boost yourself up onto the window ledge and pull yourself in the back way. When you stand up and take a step forward, the town and fjord unfold below you.

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Divebomb splash into cool lake waters, white wine bottle resting on the table behind you. Bodies plop in all around you, music blasts and laughter rings out. You paddle over and grip the shiny silver rungs of the boat's ladder, pulling yourself up out of the water, water washing away all your cares and concerns. You just hold onto the ladder, try not to slip and horrifically bruise your belly like that one time nine years ago in waters clearer and deeper than these...Read more