DAYS 47 - 49
Montenegro
Date: Sunday 27 May
Weather: Lovely
Mileage: about 200, taking the total to 3050
We were going to head for the trendy resort of Tivat, the name everyone has heard of. Depending on it's trendiness or otherwise we would stay a day or two, before moving on to Crotia. We are actually going to Perast because Tivat was full (half term we guess). A lot of the websites say Perast is better in any case. I am just the driver - what do I care?
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Well it turns out I do care about the hour long wait at the tiny border crossing! A queue of around 10 cars. Easy-peasy. That is unless one of those cars contains a Kosovon. My goodness they don't like Kosovons. In and out of the office, police all around, no thought to moving him out of the way. An hour or more later we get to the front and we are all done in seconds with smiles all round including just E15 for two weeks car insurance. Then on into Montenegro.
The difference is immediate. Lovely little cottages with pitched roofs, no unfinished flat concrete structures here. Lots of trees so I guess they did not cut them all down for firewood. Very pretty farms, tiny narrow roads, they have a very simple road system, not surprised - there are only 600,000 of them. Seat at the UN, vote on international matters, not much bigger than Edinburgh! (pop 500,000)). No previous history as a country or even a people before becoming independent in 2007. How does this make any sense at all? Sod Scotland being a country. Edinburghnians rise up!!! - throw off the yolk of tyrannical Scotland. Demand YOUR individual seat at the UN. It makes about as much sense.
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We stop in Budvar for lunch on the way through because Sara has googled it and it seems nice. It was lovely. Literally like Monaco, walled town, cracking restaurant for lunch, and back to reality - E90 for a quick two courses with wine.
Perast turns out to be a lovely little bay side village on a road just wider that a car, cue another 30 minutes of stress trying to get the 6 Series down a road more suited to a battered Mini with no wing mirrors. No parking at all, local even says "don't drive down there - crowded!!". We pull up in front of our hotel, a man jumps in the Beamer, all sorted. I breath a sigh of relief.
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The Sports Director (we have one on the team you know, looks just like Sara, Oh, it is Sara!) decided that Kayaking is the plan for the morrow. Up early and onto the bay. It is the Bay of Kotor, a massive inland bay off the Adriatic, sheltered, mountainous and with lovely clean warm water.
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The purists will have spotted this is actually not a kayak, but a canoe - picky!!. Our hotel room is circled just by Sara's head - in case you thought that was an empty speech bubble, like Sara thinking nothing at all. You will note Sara is alone in a two seat canoe. Sara has always been one to 'paddle her own canoe' as the saying goes.
I am just swimming alongside taking pictures. We could not afford two canoes.
DAY 48
Off to Tivat
Date: Monday 28 May Weather: Lovely
We canoe for about two hours across the bay and back calling in at an island with a church and lots of tourists. There we clamber out of our canoes at a dock wall, no easy thing to do watched by a throng of people willing us to fall in, only to be greeted by the cry "no pants!, no pants!". I manage to stop Sara taking her pants off, and explain that he does not mean strip naked, he means put shorts on OVER the pants because it's a church. That panic over we wander round, pose me for an awful photo, and off we paddle again.
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Canoes E30, then E100 for a boat to the famous Tivat. To be fair it is a 45 minute trip and Nico does wait three hours, but the costs mount up here. Not like cheap old Albania.
Tivat it turns out is actually Porto Montenegro, an old Naval base only turned into a super-yacht marina about seven years ago. Boy - where we pleased we did not stay there. We wandered round a soulless ex navel town until we happened upon the marina district that Tivat is famous for, about the size of Canary Wharf. Very swish but not much happening. Definitely the place for the big boats though, now the home base for the biggest boats in the world owned by the Saudi royal family. Nice lunch though, only E80.
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The pics below show the Lady of the Lake relaxing on her yacht on the way to Tivat, the small inset photo shows the same lady soaked to the skin as we came back in a thunderstorm, fortified by Nico's neat vodka......... Thank goodness for the Vodka as the lightning forked about around us, as it does.
OK, we did have two!
DAY 49 - Off to Kotor
Date: Tuesday 29 May - Weather: Lovely
According to Sara's Tours the other town to visit locally is Kotor, a walled city another hour away by boat. This time S negotiates a much smaller boat to take us there for a mere E40. Lovely place, once again right at the top level of beauty and history. Great restaurants. Nice spot of lunch and a full planning meeting is convened.
We decide to give Dunbrovnik a miss (we've both been before) and head further up the coast to a small village we pick off the map called Mali Ston. We book the cheapest room yet for £30. From there we plan drive to another small town called Drevnik to get a car ferry over to the island of Hvar. Apparently Hvar is packed! We want to stay a week for a proper holiday but can't get the hotel that 'Admin & Hotels' want. For reasons we cannot fathom these two weeks are really busy. No matter, we find somewhere almost as good. We hope this will be the case as some reviews say it is for the young, not the 'young at heart', very specifically the 'young' , whoever the hell they are. I hope this works because while Sara can sleep like a log on a Vietnamese or Indian train clacking, banging and bouncing around, she can't sleep if somebody young whispers 'good night' within 50 meters of our hotel room door. I fear for the 'young'.
Cab back to Pedarest for a more reasonable E15. I am given a free afternoon to do the accounts and get this website up to date, Sara heads for the tiny local beach. Dinner, bed and up early for the three hour run into CROATIA.
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We have loved Montenegro, mainly because we hit on the superb little village of Perast (highly recommended) but we are looking forward to hitting the road again.
The Lady of the Bay doing her thing again on the way to Kotor.
