crne gore cont.
Turns out that Kosova got the short end of the stick with the whole ex-Yugoslavia thing. I’ve told you about the nice places here, but Montenegro, its westward neighbour, is stunning… In mid-summer, it offered us crisp mountain views, often pared with aqua green rivers flowing through deep valleys, and an amazing coastline.
We stayed in a surprisingly lively town called Kotor, down the coast from Dubrovnik in Croatia. (In exciting news, while I have not yet managed to get that stamp on my passport, I can now say that I’ve *seen* Bosnia -- or a small peninsula of it -- from across the Kotorska Bay.) Kotor is hundreds of years old and remains a walled city complete with a moat and a hill-top fortress… only a small 1350 steps up! My two travel companions made the trek (in super hot weather no less), but I go on vacation to get away from my six-and-a-half flights of stairs, thank-you very much!
We also drove to Perast, another smaller but older waterfront town. Incredibly picturesque. Imagine crumbling stone homes with red roofs and lots of churches, pomegranate trees, grape vines to shade private decks, oranges, bougainvillea, and figs abound. We spent several hours the next day enjoying this same scenery while trying to find a wee’ town called Rosa. We picked it randomly off a map and, after getting lost for several hours on windy roads, were rewarded by a quaint, hippy-ish town with plenty of character… and beautiful swimming in turquoise water. The Adriatic, like the water around Greece, is so salty that you can float vertically with little to no effort, but it was a perfect match to the colourful scenery.
The only thing lacking, though, was the food -- Montenegro is definitely not a centre of haut cuisine! If only they had learned from the Greeks, not too far away, or even the Italians, especially as much of the now Montenegrin coast was once under Venetian “protection”. Despite that, the tourist business seems to be thriving. Hotels and pensions were booked full and Kotor, which boasts far fewer tourists than cities like Budva and Ulqin further down the coast, was brimming with digital cameras.
The trip made me really ponder the fate of the present-day union of Montenegro and Serbia. Officially they are equal and independent (for instance, with two Prime Ministers), but with a few shared government ministries like Foreign Affairs and Human Rights. But sometime next year, Montenegro will become able to vote on the future of the alliance: Separate and continue gaining revenue from the tourist trade (beach in summer, skiing in winter), or stick with Serbia for an economy of scale. Of course there is more to it. There is a shared language, history, and culture… I mean, we spent our first night in the mountains to avoid driving in darkness, and stayed in the town where Milosevic is from. There are definitely those who believe in being a part of Greater Serbia, but definitely not all Montenegrins feel this way. Should be interesting to see what happens.
Anyway, it’s a nice place. Glad I went, though I am in no rush to get back. I admit, knowing that I am completely spoiled, that I appreciate the West Coast as much, if not more, than the Adriatic. We did finally make it home after a little drama – firstly, our car was towed, and then we discovered a debilitating alarm problem that stumped the tow-guy and his mechanic friends for a good 45 minutes. Aiye.
But back at last.
After a nine-hour drive, it really felt like I had returned home.
Kotor, outside the old city:
From a church window in Perast:
Perast. In the distance, behind the boats, there are two islands. One is a monastery and the other is now a museum. We swam out to the monastery, about 20 minutes each way:
The Kotorska Bay is also a fjord -- a valley between two mountains so steep that they appear to be coming perpendicularly out of the water:
We stayed in a surprisingly lively town called Kotor, down the coast from Dubrovnik in Croatia. (In exciting news, while I have not yet managed to get that stamp on my passport, I can now say that I’ve *seen* Bosnia -- or a small peninsula of it -- from across the Kotorska Bay.) Kotor is hundreds of years old and remains a walled city complete with a moat and a hill-top fortress… only a small 1350 steps up! My two travel companions made the trek (in super hot weather no less), but I go on vacation to get away from my six-and-a-half flights of stairs, thank-you very much!
We also drove to Perast, another smaller but older waterfront town. Incredibly picturesque. Imagine crumbling stone homes with red roofs and lots of churches, pomegranate trees, grape vines to shade private decks, oranges, bougainvillea, and figs abound. We spent several hours the next day enjoying this same scenery while trying to find a wee’ town called Rosa. We picked it randomly off a map and, after getting lost for several hours on windy roads, were rewarded by a quaint, hippy-ish town with plenty of character… and beautiful swimming in turquoise water. The Adriatic, like the water around Greece, is so salty that you can float vertically with little to no effort, but it was a perfect match to the colourful scenery.
The only thing lacking, though, was the food -- Montenegro is definitely not a centre of haut cuisine! If only they had learned from the Greeks, not too far away, or even the Italians, especially as much of the now Montenegrin coast was once under Venetian “protection”. Despite that, the tourist business seems to be thriving. Hotels and pensions were booked full and Kotor, which boasts far fewer tourists than cities like Budva and Ulqin further down the coast, was brimming with digital cameras.
The trip made me really ponder the fate of the present-day union of Montenegro and Serbia. Officially they are equal and independent (for instance, with two Prime Ministers), but with a few shared government ministries like Foreign Affairs and Human Rights. But sometime next year, Montenegro will become able to vote on the future of the alliance: Separate and continue gaining revenue from the tourist trade (beach in summer, skiing in winter), or stick with Serbia for an economy of scale. Of course there is more to it. There is a shared language, history, and culture… I mean, we spent our first night in the mountains to avoid driving in darkness, and stayed in the town where Milosevic is from. There are definitely those who believe in being a part of Greater Serbia, but definitely not all Montenegrins feel this way. Should be interesting to see what happens.
Anyway, it’s a nice place. Glad I went, though I am in no rush to get back. I admit, knowing that I am completely spoiled, that I appreciate the West Coast as much, if not more, than the Adriatic. We did finally make it home after a little drama – firstly, our car was towed, and then we discovered a debilitating alarm problem that stumped the tow-guy and his mechanic friends for a good 45 minutes. Aiye.
But back at last.
After a nine-hour drive, it really felt like I had returned home.
Kotor, outside the old city:
From a church window in Perast:
Perast. In the distance, behind the boats, there are two islands. One is a monastery and the other is now a museum. We swam out to the monastery, about 20 minutes each way:
The Kotorska Bay is also a fjord -- a valley between two mountains so steep that they appear to be coming perpendicularly out of the water:
posted by melissa at 6:26 p.m.
1 Comments:
oh, my gosh.....it looks incredibly beautiful....but not quite as wonderful as the west coast......what an amazing adventure.......can hardly wait to hear more about the car being towed.....or what was wrong with the food.......
love, mom
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