Playing its part as the host location for the Porto Montenegro Superyacht Winter Games the Kolašin Ski Resort showed itself to be a star player
Every magical place possesses an enchanted hearth, a place where time has had its own path and it is easy to see why these words are used to describe Kolašin.
The traditional Kolašin Ski Resort is popular with both corporates and family, for wintertime skiing and summertime outdoor holidays.
The adventure begins in the town of Kolašin, where the mountains Bjelasica and Sinjajevina embrace the National Park Biogradska Gora and the river Tara.
Kolašin is a three hour drive from Porto Montenegro in Tivat and a one and half hours drive away from the capital city of Podgorica and its international airport.
In daylight, the drive going up is breath-taking as the road twists and turns through the Tara and Moraca canyons to reach the centre of Kolašin, with its small bars and cafes. At night it is best not to think of the sheer way the road drops off vertically into the valley below.
At an altitude of almost 1.000 metres above sea level, this quaint, but growing town is surrounded by a lush pine forest with spectacular views of the mountains and is an ideal environment for exploring the local flora and fauna.
The Ski Resort Kolasin just 9 km away from the town plays host to not one but now two centres cunningly joined together in recent months by the opening G7 a brand new and rather expensive ski lift.
As the stepping off point for adventures absolute peace, complete freedom and perfect harmony they are unique
Kolašin 1600 Ski Resort with its car parking for 200 cars is just 2.4 km further up the mountain from Kolašin 1450. Both were named after the elevation from which their six-seat cable car starts. Kolašin 1600 plays host to the Troglava Restaurant located just 300 metres from the starting point of its six-seat Doppelmayr cable car that whisks skiers to its highest point at 2035 metres. From there, visitors can choose two trails, Vranjak which with its 1750 metre length is categorised as a red trail, or the blue trail Jaganičar at 2800 metres long.
After a stunning traditional breakfast of Priganice, (soft and fluffy balls of dough deep fried and served dripping with local honey) served in the Troglava Restaurant, Uros Milosevic, the resort’s Commercial and Marketing Assistant, proudly showed us around the facilities and gleefully told us of plans to construct a lake and system for creating and distributing artificial snow. Uros explained that now 1600 is linked to 1450, those of the 3 to 5 thousand daily visitors who ski and snowboard, have access to 45 kilometres of slopes.
If you do not ski or board then why not ride on a chauffeur driven ski doo or, if you have experience, why not hire one yourself? Failing that, wimps like us, can just don a pair of snowshoes and a pair of sticks and hoof it to enjoy the scenery! And that is quite stunning to the point that it is easy to see why in the summer the hills are alive with walkers, horse riders and those who prefer to bike it.
It is not often that travel journalists like us who specialises in yachts get to visit the mountains but thanks to Porto Montenegro we are glad we got the chance