Start of the Ladder of Kotor

This guide to the foot of the Ladder of Kotor, the old zigzag track from the Bay of Kotor up to Cetinje, follows Montenegro's poet-prince-bishop Petar the Second Petrović-Njegoš and the palace he began in the eighteen thirties. It weighs a mountain road against one man's favourite pastime, in the years when this path was the only way to the capital. Best heard at the trailhead, looking up at the first switchbacks.