Day 70 Ohh the Heads! And the Granduer!

Wednesday 30/05/2018 Apartment Miles UTJEHA - BUSAT, Utjeha, 85000, Montenegro

Today started unlike most days, I had a terrible headache and John had a massive hangover. Last night had taken a turn for the worse with Mila filling John’s Rakia glass a number of times... while talking I noticed John disappear I come back to find him extremely unwell on the floor of the bathroom floor.
I went to bed and must have died, didn’t hear a think.... so unsure when John had come to bed.
He tried to surface at 7am , but had to go back to bed, he tried agin at 10 am, but still too unwell, eventually around midday he finally surfaced but still very unwell.... by 2pm he was well enough for us to go to the shops.
My headache started out pretty bad but as the day wore on and the help of meds I could function ok. We are far too old for events like this.... both have not had this occur for years..... But that fire water Rakia has hit like a mule.... serious and hard!

I managed to get most of my photos and some diary up to date while John slept... it was good not to have to go anyway in a rush.

So off to Voli the supermarket to do our stores shopping.... had a cuppa here and managed to find in an upstairs section of their supermarket, glue to fix my shoes and sand shoes for swimming ( you need these to swim on the pebble beaches we were told)

Then off we went for a drive around the wharf and centre of Bar........ down by the wharf were plenty of ships, not huge ones, but police ones, Navy ones a few private ones and in amongst them all one that looked like it had been salvaged from the bottom of the ocean... it looked pretty worse for wear.... Next off to the big what I thought was a Mosque but turned out to be a Cathedral..... The Cathedral Of St. John Vladimir Bar..... John sat in the car while I went to have a look, ohh my goodness what a surprise.... it really was indescribable there was just so much to take in.... nearly every single section of wall was covered with Frescos..... and from what I could see it must have been a story... it was just so huge.... after taking a heap of pictures I went out to the car to tell John to come and see it as it was like nothing we have ever witnessed.... also mentioned to him I felt it looked very new.... as I didn’t know the name of it or what religion it was he said I should ask.... so I went back and asked the you girl... that’s when she told me it opened only 2 years ago... and it’s name.... when you looked at the walls it looked very much about a story and a mixture of many religions.... parts of it looked very a Muslim parts very Christian, it had a weird mix of many things.... so once home I googled what I could about it.
~The magnificent Cathedral of St. John Vladimir whose construction began nearly 20 years ago, located in downtown, not far from the coast. It has an area of 1200 m² and height of 41 meters. Characteristics of the temple are that the frescoes painted 4,860 square meters, is made of marble iconostasis length of 18.5 m and is set floor mosaic of 550 m². On the central dome is painted Ascension while in the lower part the dome is painted the Madonna with the 12 apostles, four evangelists, which makes a total 600 m² of the frescoes. The temple was erected in honor of St. John Vladimir - the first Serbian saint and protector of Bar.There are three basic features of his thousand year old spiritual presence in this region: The remains of the monastery of the Preciste Bogorodice Krajinske in which they are relics of Holy King been up to 1215, Cross of Saint John Vladimir and legend of Vladimir and Kosara.

The legend of Vladimir and Kosara - The oldest and the most beautiful love story in Montenegrin history is related to Vladimir, the King of Duklja. During a war with the Bulgarian Emperor Samuel, he was imprisoned in the year 998 at the court in Prespa. The merciful Emperor’s daughter Kosara went to see the slaves in the cellar of the court every day and she fell in love with the beautiful man from Duklja who received bread and water from her. The Emperor’s daughter persuaded her father to allow her to marry the famous prisoner. King Vladimir, when back home, became very popular with the people and so Samuel’s heir, Emperor Vladislav decided to destroy him. He lured Vladimir to Prespa, sending him a wooden cross as a guarantee of his safety, and then he killed him. Because Vladimir’s cult started to spread, Vladislav allowed Kosara to transport Vladimir’s remains to Duklja. In the Precista Krajinska monastery on the lake of Skadar, Vladimir was buried with the wooden cross. Here, Kosara spent her remaining days as a nun under the name of Teodora and was buried next to her husband. The cult of the first saint from Duklja quickly spread to the neighboring lands - Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and beyond. The cross of Saint Vladimir has been kept for centuries as the greatest relic of the Androvic fraternity. Each year, on Holy Trinity Day, it is carried to the top of Mt. Rumija, where, according to legend, there was a church dedicated to the Holy Trinity. After the church was destroyed, the cross was found in the remains. The procession which carries the cross respects custom that each member of the proce-ssion (Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim) should bring one stone with them, because they believe that the church will rebuild itself, once there are enough stones.

So there you go it is a mix of many religions different for sure... so unbelievable in its workmanship and yet it felt very eerie in a lot of ways... once reading it’s history I now know why!

We finished our drive around the centre area and headed home, enough for John to cope with today... finally got to cook a meal and relaxed for the evening, no alcohol for either today our free Alcohol day.Read more