Montenegro

A glorious, long, relaxing week in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro.  The Bay is said by some to be Europe's most southern fjord, others say it's not a fjord, it's a drowned river canyon.  Whatever it is, it is fjord-like... deep, deep water, towering mountains, deep folds and inlets.  Lord Byron said:

"At the moment of the creation of our planet,

the most beautiful merging of land and sea occurred

at the Montenegrin seaside....where the pearls of

nature were sworn, an abundance of them

were strewn all over this area...."

 

Really, we couldn't agree with him more.  The mountains, the water...it's all so spectacular.

We stayed a week in Njivice, a small bay community of only a couple of hundred homes.  We rented the top floor apartment of Gordana and Zoran's three-story family villa that stands right on the waters-edge, with terraces on each level and their own beach and boat jetty below.  A few minutes walk is a lovely restaurant, and a small market.  Directly across the bay is Hercig Novi, or party-town, as we christened it.   Most nights, depending on the wind direction,  we could hear music from the discos and bars across the water in Hercig Novi, at precisely 1.30am the music stopped!

The drive around the Bay is so spectacular we did it a few times during the week.  To old town Kotor twice, and swimming days at Mirinj and beautiful Perast.  There is also a car ferry that plies across the bay at certain points.  We took a day trip over the border to Dubrovnik - such a beautiful walled city - one of our favourites.

Sveti Stefan, Montenegro

Perast on the Bay of Kotor was once owned by the Republic of
Venice. This tiny village has 16 baroque palaces, as well as 19 churches.
It also has beautiful waterside restaurants and swimming off the rocks
here is so deliciously refreshing.  For 3 euros one of the locals will
take you in his  boat to one of the two little islands in the middle of the Bay,
Our Lady of the Rocks.  There's a romantic story attached to this little
island that dates back to the 1400s.

Perast.....lovely casual restaurants like these.  

UNESCO world heritage listed Perast.

Mirinj on the Bay of Kotor.  We loved this café and went back a couple of times
for breakfast and a swim, or lunch and a swim. Now why don't we have
 cafes with sun beds like these at home?

Early each morning Zoran would go out fishing, and
Gordana surprised us one evening with a knock at the door.  She'd
cooked some of the morning's catch for us.  Such lovely, hospitable friends.



The Bay of Kotor is just a short drive from the Croatian border.
From the border it's 30 mins drive to the beautiful walled city
of Dubrovnik. It's a stunner, and we loved the opportunity to re-visit.

We walked the ancient walls.  This is the little café on
the rocks, through a hole in the walls.

Jumpers!

Em.....where are you?

Next Monday, July 1 - Croatia joins the EU.

Dubrovnik harbour.  We had a swim under the walls, just as
we did in 2011. 

Montenegro is a very new country, independent since 2006 only, and while I don't think I'll ever understand the history of the Balkan neighbours, there was a little problem with Montenegro and two of its neighbours that affected us directly.  You see, in the coastal area around Hercig Novi, turn on a tap....no water comes out!  Except for about 15 minutes around 7.00pm each (well, most) evenings when there is a low-pressure flow.  It seems that the water supply for this part of the coast comes from Bosnia and Herzegovina, via Croatia, and there has been a problem for a couple of weeks with the pipeline.  We heard varying stories about what the problem actually was, how long it's been occurring and when it would be rectified.  If we were home at 'water o'clock' we'd hear the pipes hiss and spit and splatter, and there'd be excitement outside as Zoran and Gordana busily filled large water containers on each terrace of their villa for use the next day - to flush toilets using a smaller bucket of water, fill jugs, coffee machines, and sinks for washing up.  We noticed that many of the resorts and hotels in the area advertised 'own water supply' which indicates that the water problem was not just this single occurrence.  Our poor hosts were terribly apologetic and embarrassed about this problem, for us it was only a minor inconvenience - we swam numerous times each day, and if we were out exploring and didn't arrive 'home' in time, well, a shower was a bucket of water tipped over ourselves in the bathroom to wash off the Adriatic salt.  Lucky it's summer!  We hope that our Montenegrin friends have their reliable water source soon.

PS:  We met our first Montenegrin about half an hour after crossing the border from Albania.   I had taken over the driving for the second half of our day's journey and a policeman who noticed that I crossed an unbroken white line just outside Budva, attracted our attention with his flashing lights.  Ooops.  Off to sit in the police car I went.  For Montenegrins this is a very serious offence, he explained with just a few words of English.  It attracts an on-the-spot penalty of 2 months confiscation of a driver's licence.  With his notebook he sketched what he had observed, then it was my turn to use his pen and try and  sketch what I thought  I'd done.  That is, overtake a truck at the beginning of an overtaking lane (which turned out to be a left hand turn lane...not an overtaking lane). Oh dear, I didn't think I was doing too well with my explanation....his turn again...his options were to take me to the local Magistrate's court where a fine would be determined by the Magistrate (this would only about 40 minutes), or to give me a warning. 

Thank you Montenegrin policeman friend - for the warning : )