Ninety seconds on Ostrog Monastery
This is a working shrine before it is a sight, and it runs on the pilgrim calendar rather than the tourist one. The dress code is enforced at the door. A weekday morning is a different place entirely.
Two monasteries, and most people see only the upper one. The lower sits in trees on the valley road and holds the church of the Holy Trinity. The upper is the one in every photograph, pressed into a vertical limestone face, and it is two small cave chapels rather than a building: one at the level of the terrace, one above it holding the relics of Saint Basil. The queue for the reliquary is the visit for most of the people here, and on a busy morning it is the long part. The terrace outside looks straight down the Zeta valley.
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