Around the world photo album

Blogradska Gora

 National Park

Part 5

Biogradska Gora National Park

Blogradska Gora National Park

Blogradska Gora

 The mountainous region of Bjelasica

Biogradska Gora National Park

Around the World Photo Album Part 6 

Biogradska Gora is located in the mountainous region of Bjelasica in the central part of Montenegro between the rivers Tara and Lim, and is surrounded by three municipalities: Kolašin, Berane and Mojkovac. It is the most northeasterly of the five national parks in Montenegro.

Biogradska Gora is a forest and a national park in Montenegro within Kolašin municipality. One of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves, this area is one of the last three large virgin forests in Europe.

The National Park is 54 km² in area. Basic elements of the Park are: untouched forest, large mountain slopes and tops over 2,000 meters high, six glacial lakes, five at an altitude of 1,820 meters and one easy accessible low land lake (Šiško, Mali Šiško, Ursulovačko, Pešica, and Ševarina) located at the very entrance to the park, Biogradsko Lake.

Swift streams cut through scenery of Biogradska Gora, green pastures and clear lakes reflecting centennial forests. The Park is renowned as a unique geomorphological region and, as such, it is attractive for scientific research. The seat of the park is in Kolašin. The national park abounds in cultural and historic heritage consisting of sacral monuments national building and archeological localities. Numerous authentic buildings of traditional architecture are found throughout the pastures and villages next to the virgin forest reserve on the Bjelasica mountain range.

 The mountainous region of Bjelasica

Blogradska Gora

 National Park

 The mountainous region of Bjelasica

Bjelasica (Montenegrin and Serbian Cyrillic: Бјеласица pronounced [bjɛlǎsitsa]) is a mountain range located in the Biogradska Gora national park near Kolašin, Montenegro. The highest point of Bjelasica is Crna Glava ("Black Head"), which is 2,139 m (7,018 ft) high.

The area of the mountain range is 630 km2 (240 sq mi), with an equal width and length of 30 km. The entire mountain range divides into four expanses, which stretch from the NW to the SE. Its geological features are of volcanic origins, with smooth round shapes and mildly rolling landscape, differing from most of Montenegro's other mountains of calcareous composition abounding in karst forms, with numerous crevasses and crevices.

The range is bordered by Lim and Tara rivers. It is located in 5 of Montenegro's 21 municipalities: Kolašin (for the most part), Mojkovac, Bijelo Polje, Berane, and Andrijevica.

Montenegro

Montenegro has both a picturesque coast and a mountainous northern region. The country was a well-known tourist spot in the 1980s. Yet, the Yugoslav wars that were fought in neighbouring countries during the 1990s crippled the tourist industry and damaged the image of Montenegro for years.

With a total of 1.6 million visitors, Montenegro is the 36th most visited country (out of 47 countries) in Europe. The Montenegrin Adriatic coast is 295 km (183 mi) long, with 72 km (45 mi) of beaches and many well-preserved ancient old towns. National Geographic Traveler (edited once a decade) ranks Montenegro among the "50 Places of a Lifetime", and the Montenegrin seaside Sveti Stefan was used as the cover for the magazine. The coast region of Montenegro is considered one of the great new "discoveries" among world tourists. In January 2010, The New York Times ranked the Ulcinj South Coast region of Montenegro, including Velika Plaza, Ada Bojana, and the Hotel Mediteran of Ulcinj, among the "Top 31 Places to Go in 2010" as part of a worldwide ranking of tourism destinations.

Montenegro was also listed by Yahoo Travel among the "10 Top Hot Spots of 2009" to visit, describing it as being "[c]urrently ranked as the second fastest growing tourism market in the world (falling just behind China)". It is listed every year by prestigious tourism guides like Lonely Planet as a top tourist destination along with Greece, Spain and other popular locations.

It was not until the 2000s that the tourism industry began to recover, and the country has since experienced a high rate of growth in the number of visits and overnight stays.