Day 25: Montenegro Day Trip, Soccer Game

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Ivana took us to the bus stop at 8:10. The van pulled up, the driver jumped out, said “Montenegro”, Ivana said yes and we jumped on. About 30 minutes into the trip, the phone rang, and the driver turned to us and said “Where are your tickets?” It turned out that we were on the WRONG tourist van!!! After much discussion, the other driver picked up the other people and we met half way and exchanged!!! The second van did not have very good AC… should have just stayed on the first!



Montenegro has lots of beautiful sand beaches, and, according to Gabriel our guide, the are 500 Russian millionaires. According to travel books, it has a 3^rd world country infrastructure (power outages, etc.) with $500 per night luxuray spa hotels. It is a much poorer country than its neighbor Croatia.



We drove several hours. We went through customs on a back road to avoid the lines. We arrived at the Bay of Kotor, absolutely beautiful!!! I felt like I was at Lago Majorie in the Italian Alps or a fiord in Finland.



We stopped for a bathroom break at a Roman House Mosaic, which is being restored. It was very nice.



We stopped at the old town of Kotor, and enjoyed walking around the old town. It has red stones in the walks, which I loved. There were Orthodox as well as Christian churches, and the town has a history of many cultures since before Christ. The mountain rose immediately behind the town, and the city wall ran up it. This city wall is the 3^rd longest stone wall in the world. I visited St. Nichola and the 12^th century St. Luke’s, now Orthodox.



We went to a small beach town, Budva, for lunch. We had a sandwich on the beach with some of our group. It was very hot, over 100 degrees, and some of the group planned well with swimming gear.



We drove past the infamous Aman Sveti Stefan Island Hotel, 50 euros to visit. We took a ferry across the Bay at Stollv. The rest of the trip home was a 2 -hour blur… the van was HOT and the AC did not work very well. The driver kept his window open which did not help. We were in the very back and about to “expire.”



We went to the local area to watch the soccer game. Croatia was playing Spain, and had to win or score 2. Most of the tourists have gone back to the cruise ships by 7 pm, so it was lots of locals and the town tourists. The colors of Croatia are red and white checks, and the colors were everywhere. We found a table we could share with a Croatian guy, and settled in to watch the game in the Gundul Poljana Plaza, which had 8 TVs that I could see, and around 300 people. It was typical all over town. The waiters were working really hard, serving beer quickly and collecting money at time of delivery.



We left at half time, and had dinner late with more TVs and soccer; 2 salads and a risota. It wasn’t the best meal I’ve had here. Croatia lost the game to Spain, and we went home to sleep.



MORE PHOTOS BELOW

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