DURMITOR AND TARA RIVER

The Durmitor National Park with the river Tara covers 350 sq.km of dominantly karst landscape in Montenegro. It includes the Durmitor mountain range with one of the highest Dinara peaks (Bobotov Kuk, 2523 m). A cluster of mountain peaks, not large but very scenic and unusual, is interweaved by deep gorge valleys amidst high karst plateaus. The 1,5 km deep Tara river gorge, the deepest and longest in Europe and one of the most characteristic gorge valleys in the world, lends special appeal to this region. The park was inscribed in the World Heritage List in 1980.

The appearance of Durmitor was influenced mostly by the glaciers which covered these mountains and mountain valleys during the Ice Age. After they melted, Steep cliffs, rounded peaks, moraines and numerous lakes remained. Thanks to these mountain lakes and picturesque trough-shaped mountain valleys with small ravines, Durmitor stands out among the mountain ranges of Southeast Europe. From among thirty smaller and larger lakes, the most famous is the Black Lake.

Although not very large, the region of Durmitor boasts with an abundance of plant species. If the Tara river gorge is taken into account as well, as many as ten of these are endemic species, as a result of the diversity of soil and large differences in height above sea level.

The animal world is also rich with various species. The inaccessibility and small human population of these Montenegrin mountains and plateaus provide excellent conditions even for animal species which have already disappeared from other parts of Europe, or have become very rare and endangered.