Blogs from Kotor, Kotor, Montenegro, Europe

Today dawned gloriously fine and sunny which should make the trip into Kotor and a look around easy to do. In the absence of egg cups Gretchen adapted an egg carton by cutting off the individual egg holders and putting them inside one of the small coffee cups to make 'egg cups'.We had tired of scambled egg and it was time for boiled eggs for a change.The 'cups'should last and not need to be washed!With the toaster we purchased during our Niksic shopping expedition(the one we bought in Naples works but only if you hold it down and we weren't able to trade it in at the Auchan store we tried at)we can now make hot toast again which is something we were missing. We headed into Kotor about 10km away and found a parking area ... read more

The Croatia-Montenegro border had a large flag outside. I nodded in appreciation at the design. It was royal red with a fetching gold border and a yellow two-headed eagle in the middle. It looked like a medieval coat of arms, something a knight might take into battle. Cyrillic was back to prominence again, I noticed, a script we'd not seen since Bosnia. It was written across the guard booth we were waiting at. Border formalities were painless and the coach moved on. The road turned east as we traversed the beautiful Bay of Kotor, an inlet of the Mediterranean Sea, but low-level cloud was cloaking the mountains and lashings of rain was obscuring the water. "What a shame," said Michael. "I could've got some really good photos." One and a half hours later, we arrived ... read more

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Another early start later and we were on the bus leaving Sarajevo, heading to Montenegro. Specifically Ostrog Monastery. After a gut churning ride through some beautiful Bosnian countryside, with the driver both smoking a cigarette and talking on his mobile phone most of the way, we were dropped at the side of the road near the monastry, ready to take a mini bus up for a night of serenity. And getting to know our fellow travellers better, as we were staying in group dorms. Montenegro has been surprisingly stunning. Though I dont know why surprisingly because I did not really focus that much on researching the country before I came away. The landscape turned much more arid, but still very dramatic with mountains surrounding nearly everywhere we travelled. The monastery is known as having the preserved ... read more

K- It only takes about 4 hours to go all the way up the Montenegro coast from Albania to Croatia so we decided to base ourselves in Budvar, a beach town about half way up the country and do some day trips. My definition of luxury after a year of traveling is spending more than one night in a hotel (closely followed by a backpack of clean laundry) so the fact that we could spend 3 nights in one place immediately endeared Montenegro to me. We didn’t know much about Montenegro before we got there but found it have a lovely coastline and some small, walled cities which are common in this area. The photos pretty much speak for themselves. We did not explore the interior because we had just made it back from the Albanian ... read more

The drive from Albania to Kotor, Montenegro was another spine chilling one! This is where I invented the saying "hairier than a kiwi fruit" and Nick earned his formula one stripes. The road is pretty much single lane the whole way past the border (two hours drive time) winding up and around the mountains on a cliff face with the sea below. When other cars come you have to pull over and at times reverse. Insane. The town of Kotor is itself a world heritage site, built in the 9th century. It is impossibly beautiful! It seriously looks like something from Disneyland, with a maze of cobbled streets and tiny little lane ways. You have to enter through the old iron gates at the front. All the buildings are super cute with old wooden window shutters ... read more