It's Not Flat!
⬆intro next ➡Day 1 ~ 6 September ~ London to Montenegro (Herceg Novi, Tivat)
Another silly-early flight, so we've spent the night at the Gatwick North Terminal Premier Inn, despite our departure being South Terminal. It's actually easier to get the monorail shuttle between terminals than to use the 'official' South Terminal hotel, because the valet parking drop-off is directly adjacent, so dead easy. They'll deliver the car back to the South Terminal when we return, so that's not a problem either.
Dawn has now broken, but not by much: it's about 7:20am as we reach the runway for takeoff.
And a couple of hours later, here we are. (Well, actually, not quite. This is the town of Neum in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it's less than 80km from here to the airport and there's no big sign to identify the country. I have had to resort to Google image search to identify the place.)
Arrival is all pretty straightforward: no big queues, bags are quick off the belt. Things were very smooth at Gatwick too, how unusual!
Meet Marko, our guide, Dasha, our driver, and Peter and Thérèse, the only other two in our group. We were expecting a few more, as WF say "up to 12", and we had to defer our Danakil trip several times because they couldn't get the minimum viable number of six.
But that's fine. P&T are Aussies, now retired, and they're spending a bit of time in Europe. They've been in Greece for three weeks before this, and will be off to Italy afterwards.
Now I grew up with a cousin named Thérèse, and have never thought it a particularly unusual name, but this Thérèse is slightly surprised that we don't find it difficult. Seems people are always calling her 'Teresa' or 'Tessa' or some such variation.
I don't know for certain, but with my family background being Catholic, I think it's likely that the name is in honour of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who was a French Discalced Carmelite; I mention that solely because it is the second blog in a row wherein I have found a use for the splendid word “discalced”.
Anyway, we are off to the Montenegro border by minibus now. The country is not completely without airports, but they still don't have a lot of international direct traffic, and Dubrovnik airport is actually closer to Herceg Novi, the first town we'll visit, than Montenegro's Tivat airport. [We'll be spending our first night in Tivat, but not really doing anything more there.]
Let's begin our walk around Herceg Novi, then.
Marko is the chap in the Nirvana shirt [I am sure that at least 90% of people who wear Nirvana T-shirts are too young to actually remember the band, if they were even born before Kurt Cobain died], and that's Peter facing him next to Amanda.
Quite an architectural mishmash, reflecting a complex history. It began as a fortress built at the end of the 14th century by the king of Bosnia, became part of the Ottoman Empire, then the Venetian Republic. Originally named after St Stephen, it became known as just Novi -- 'New' -- but later Herceg -- meaning 'Prince' -- was added when it became the winter seat of the Kosača noble house.
At the end of the 18th Century it became part of the Habsburg Empire for a few years, then briefly ceded to Russia before being further ceded to Napoleon's French Empire. Then back to Austria-Hungary until the end of the First World War, when it became part of the Montenegrin Republic in what we now think of as Yugoslavia.
Phew! Thanks Wikipedia.
Plenty of clues to the fortress origin and continuing strategic signficance of the location.
Who needs statues or public art when you have giant rusty anchors?!
Looking down from the castle to the marina.
Ok, they do have statues too. This is King Stefan Tvrtko I, first king of Bosnia and the original founder of the city. But it's not a very ancient monument, dating back only to 2013!
My first Montenegrin beer, and very fine it is too!
And guess what? With the Venetian connection, they have a lot of Italian style food, including some pretty decent pizza.
And cats!
We were a bit surprised at the near total absence of cats in Portugal earlier this year, and reckon we've seen more in a few hours here than we did in the entire trip before.
Anyway, after lunch, we are continuing to Tivat.
We take a short ferry ride.
It's quite a busy route, unsurprising as it looks like it saves a good few hours of driving otherwise.
Back on the road on the far side, we continue to our hotel, where we don't do much other than freshen up for dinner.
Quite a modern place.
It's perfectly clean and comfortable, but not particularly exciting.
Good bedside lights, though.
Dinner is hearty! Amanda has fish rather than partake of the mound of meat, along with a glass of local white wine that she reckons is not going to give the good vignerons of France many sleepless nights, but is perfectly ok. I (and I think the rest of us) choose beer, especially as it's still warm and quite humid.
After dinner, we have a little stroll along the waterfront. It's clear that a lot of money has been spent on making this place an upmarket destination for what the Visit Montenegro website still slightly quaintly calls, "the world’s jet-set".
So there's not much olde-worlde charm to be had, but it's a pleasant walk on a pleasant evening.
We do like the illuminated crane.
And then little laser spots projected on the ground. What does it all mean? Don't know, but it's pretty.
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