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saw his arms. As the candlelight l ickered, I felt they were happy arms...
wanting and eager to give everyone present a big, Slavic bear hug.
Standing through an Eastern Orthodox service there, in a humble church
in the forgotten historic capital of a mountain kingdom, I was thankful I had
zigzagged to that remote corner of Europe. All those switchbacks earned
me the chance to witness a vibrant and time-honored tradition surviving
the storms of globalization and modernization.
From Cetinje, I descended back to the Bay of Kotor. At the humble
waterfront town of Perast, young guys in swim trunks edged their boats
near the dock, jockeying to motor tourists out to the island in the middle
of the bay. According to legend, i shermen saw the Virgin Mary in the reef
and began a ritual of dropping a stone on the spot every time they sailed
by. Eventually the island we see today was created, and upon that island
the people built a i ne little church.
I hired a guy with a dinghy to ferry me out and was met by a young
woman who gave me a tour. In the sacristy hung a piece of embroidery—a
25-year-long labor of love made by a local parishioner 200 years ago. It was
Montenegro's Bay of Kotor rewards the curious traveler.
