It's Not Flat!
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 7 ~ 12 September ~ Around Kotor
Well, can't say the room was great, and breakfast was sadly horrible. The place sufficed as somewhere to sleep, but we wouldn't recommend it.So today, the original itinerary is a bit vague, but Marko has a plan. We are going for another hike in the hills on the other side of the bay, then a boat ride out to a small island and a pretty village. The latter would normally be an extra cost but Marko has blagged us some free places!
First we have a little look around the harbour by daylight.
Then Dasha collects us and we set off, but we've barely gone half a kilometre before the traffic gets so bad that we grind to a complete halt. After some minutes, he turns around and takes us via a different route. Words are used that we can guess are not polite about some of his fellow drivers. Plan B is right along the waterside, and the road is narrow and slow but we are at least moving.
Then we climb up out of the town to our drop-off point to start walking.
Looking down we can see Tivat airport. It's quite small and doesn't have any London flights, so of entirely academic interest to us.
Off we go.
Now, look carefully to the right and you will see other people here. Well blimey! It's only a couple of girls we met the other day at Katun Goleš where they were staying at the same lodge!
And now what do we have here? It's a small farm with animals pretty much left to their own devices. It's hot today, so this little piggie is cooling off in a puddle.
I wonder how you say "There's a goat in my trailer" in Serbian?
Another goat with a particularly fine pair of horns.
Marko is making a new friend.
Eggs, milk, cheese... we'll quietly gloss over the other products on sale.
The trail gently ascends for an hour and a half, but it's an easy path.
The view from the top, looking roughly West, away from Kotor
The descent is a little steeper, although still mostly on a good path. There's been some kind of landslide here, though, revealing the strata.
I don't think many breakdown services operate here. Quite why this abandoned vehicle is in the middle of nowhere is a mystery.
The path becomes rather less clear.
But every so often we find another clearly artificial section. We're definitely still on the right route.
Are we sure???
Yes, there's even a sign about it!
Oops, it's easy to stumble on the rough stones.
We can't see Thérèse behind us, but she has Marko to help her so she should be ok.
Hurrah! We've reached the bottom.
"I SURVIVED!"
"And so did I!"
I'll drink to that!
In many ways, that last descent through the rocks and brambles was harder than what was supposed to be the hard day, and I suspect I'm the one who enjoyed it most.
We need a spot of lunch, so we drive to a bakery and get some böreks and things. Gourmet it ain't, but it's a bit late and we're hungry.
Back now for our boat ride.
The traffic is still horrendous, hope we aren't going to be late.
Ah, looks pretty relaxed in fact.
The reason we're here is that another Ace Adventures group has already booked it but won't fill the boat, and as we're a small group, we can just slip in with a quiet word to one of his mates. They don't seem to have arrived yet, so we have no rush after all.
Straight ahead is St George Island, with an old Benedictine monastery, but we're not visiting there, we're going to the smaller island to its left (mostly hidden behind that big red and white ferry).
"Our Lady of the Rocks" (Gospa od Škrpjela) is a wholly man-made island, created by dumping rocks and sinking old ships filled with rocks. There are several variations on a legend around a 15th-century icon of the Madonna as the trigger for this construction, and the most extensive version seems to be here.
It's an interesting and attractive little place, but it's not big and it doesn't take us that long to see all of it, so we get back in the boat to cross to the nearby coastal village of Perast.
Perast is quite an upmarket place, full of little boutiques and hotels.
Now that sounds worth checking out!
And we can confirm that they are very excellent ice creams indeed.
And now back to our hotel for our last night in Montenegro.
Marko says that there's €20 left in the tips kitty, and he could just give it back to us, but he'd quite like to buy us each a little surprise with it. We're up for that, wonder what he means?
For our final dinner, we're meeting in a restaurant a short walk away. P&T are already there having a drink when we arrive and Marko joins us shortly. The surprise he promised us turns out to be little miniature bottles of rakija, fruit brandy, which is something of a national institution. I found this rather entertaining description online:
Rakija is widely considered to be а national drink of Montenegro. Said to instantly destroy bacteria, relieve you of stomach and muscle pain, annihilate viruses and disinfect wounds it has attained mythical status here.That's a fun little present, thanks.
Dasha should be joining us, but he's first delayed by having to help with another group, then stuck in traffic, then further delayed by street protestors protesting about some local gang feud or something!
After chicken noodle soup we have this magnificent fish and seafood platter. Sadly it's getting a bit late for poor Amanda and she's definitely flagging now. We leave at about 10:30 and Amanda's basically asleep before her head touches the pillow!
Tomorrow Dubrovnic for our short visit there.
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