A photograph of Nekula’s St. Moritz in today’s newspaper. Usual tourist item, adventures & food highlighted. The photograph however came as a surprise, the kind of loveliness on display quite unexpected. All the luscious green firs immediately behind the town, sturdy buildings and no sign of fancy boutiques. Not what one might have expected. The very wealthy were preserved from crassness possibly; the cultivated, seriously wealthy. (Possibly they still existed and visited such places.) Jewellery and watch-makers in this alpine town were hidden in modest shop-fronts, without any advertising apart from the family name, perhaps. Examining the wide-angle shot over the morning tea one understood better how Neki had spent thirty years in St. M. and developed such an affection for the place. In fact here was a close counterpart of our Montenegrin coast. The mountains prevailed the same, the firs ringing round and the basin of the lake. Once Neki had mentioned a lake that froze over in winter and drew skaters. Here the water was on the town’s doorstep, like our village in Boka, anchored to the essential enabler of life. Human intrusion could only impact so far in such setting; visitors were forced to adapt to the environment, adjust their rhythms and quiet themselves. There was an other worldly feel evoked. The Sound of Music was filmed in such setting; but the truth was that domain exceeded the solace of music. In a recent mail Neki had been told that he could be visited now in his adopted new home of Zurich, when St. Moritz had always been assumed impossible.
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