Last week we visited our friends in Bijelo Polje, Musa and Sabina Ramović. This was a good opportunity to see some interesting places in town, but we were also eager to explore the picturesque surroundings: the village of Bistrica, the monastery of Podvrh and the Đalovića Gorge, where an important new tourist project is under construction.
Although Bijelo Polje seems to be somewhat off the beaten track, it has a very active tourism organization, which has issued a nice city map. The map also includes the tourist attractions in the surrounding villages, along with a detailed description
But there is another reason why this area is so attractive: the production of slow food! Many members of the chapter Slow Food Montenegro – Bjelasica&Komovi and Prokletije live and work in the villages around Bijelo Polje. .
Bijelo Polje (in translation “white field”) is situated in the picturesque valley of the Lim river in north-eastern Montenegro and has around 20,000 inhabitants. But why has it got such a beautiful and unusual name? Just imagine: in this very place there was once an endless field of daisies!
After a typical (very generous) slow food breakfast called “heljdija”, a pie made of buckwheat flour with sour cream, we made a short walk through the central part of the town.
No doubt, the most famous attraction of Bijelo Polje is the medieval Church of St. Peter and Paul, where one of the oldest manuscripts in Orthodox culture, the Miroslav Gospel, was created. Another famous cultural monument is the Gushmir Mosque, erected in 1741.
On a terrace above the Lim river, we discovered the Park of Poets with memorials to three of Bijelo Polje’s famous writers, whose stone busts look out over the town and the river. A rather new sculpture in the park was dedicated to Avdo Međedović, a well-known epic poet, born in 1875 in Bijelo Polje. Avdo was illiterate, but he could sing a thousand of verses he all knew by heart.
We passed through a steep and narrow street, where we could still see examples of local architecture and remainders of craft workshops. What a pity that this street has not been preserved in its traditional style! It would have been an important attraction for visitors.
The Homeland Museum, once a secular secondary school, contains various historic and art collections. We particularly liked the ethnographic department, where we could see how the interior of a town house in Bijelo Polje looked like and how people were dressed in the old times.
After the walk we continued our trip by car to the village of Bistrica, around 20 km away. This area is the most beautiful part of the municipality of Bijelo Polje.
Once this used to be a well-developed area. Bistrica had electrical power even before the town of Bijelo Polje. It was Otto Jung, a German from Banat, who in 1936 constructed a small hydroelectric power station, which can still be seen in the village.
At first we passed a beautiful stone bridge, the oldest monument from the Ottoman period in this area. Legend says that it was built with a special mortar, made with eggs and milk obtained from the surrounding villages.
Bistrica itself looks like a conglomerate of villages and groups of houses. We saw a mosque, several fishponds and a few traditional houses, but modern buildings prevailed.
We continued our trip along a new, still unpaved road that leads to the monastery of St. Nicholas in Podvrh. This is where a new cable car is under construction, which should establish a connection with the Đalovića Cave, one of the most beautiful caves of the Balkans, situated in the Đalovića Gorge. Within two years from now, the road will be finished, the cable car line – with a capacity of 75 visitors/hour – constructed and the cave, which can now be visited by speleologists only, will be made accessible to tourists. A huge project indeed that will make the long lasting dream of the population – to develop tourism in this area – come true!
This will also bring the isolation of the Podvrh monastery to an end, as it is located exactly at the starting point of the cable car. This monastery, built in 1606 and dedicated to St. Nicholas, does not look like a sanctuary. In size and shape it resembles a shepherd’s hut, built far from the village at an altitude of 770 meters above sea level.
The church was painted in 1613 by the best fresco painter of that time, priest Strahinja from Budimlje, and the iconostasis was made half a century later by the famous iconographer Kozma. But the most interesting fact about this monastery is that the famous manuscript “Gospel of Divoš”, created around 1330, had been hidden for centuries in the monastery treasury. It was discovered only in 1960, amongst other rare manuscripts and printed books.
On our way back, we visited the farm of Vujadin and his old mother. We had visited him last year with a camper group and we certainly remembered his excellent “rakija” and his great hospitality. It was so nice to revisit this farm that is still run in the traditional way!
And finally, it was a special pleasure to visit the Hadžibegović family, Refko and Emina, members of the Slow Food Program and producers of corn and buckwheat flour. Refko has his own mill and his flour is famous all over the region and beyond, as he has also participated in a slow food fair in Torino, Italy. And it was clear that Emina plays a special role in this family: apart from her regular duties in the rural household, she appeared to be a surprisingly good painter!
But we had to return to Podgorica, as the winter days are still rather short. We had a great day with many new experiences and we will certainly be back in spring, as there is so much to see in this beautiful region around Bijelo Polje!
Are you one of those travelers who want to discover less known places in Montenegro that are not frequented by hundreds or thousands of tourists? Pay a visit to the region of Bijelo Polje. And don’t forget to spend a few days in Bistrica, a paradise for rural tourism and slow food lovers!
Info:
www.ramstravel.co.me
www.tobijelopolje.me
Nice article. Some years ago we visted several times all that places. Really interesting!