We were both up early again today, around 06:00.  Today we were leaving at 08:00, a bit earlier than usual, because there are lots of day tours to Kotor from Dubrovnik, and Martin and Drago didn’t want us caught up in traffic with tour buses.  Justin went out walking again, this time going well to the east of the walled city, as far as the Excelsior hotel, such that he could see the walled city with more of the coastline.  He also walked uphill closer to the city, hoping to find a good viewpoint, but he ran out of time before finding what he was looking for.  The Wordle today was Pious, which was pretty hilarious given that it had come up the day before at lunch as a possible “starter word” for people trying to use a lot of vowels.  We wondered whether anyone had gotten the puzzle today on their first guess. 

When we got in the vehicle, we found out no one had.  It wasn’t too long before we were at the Montenegro border, but it was already packed.  So Drago turned around, went on some side road, and 10 minutes later we were at an empty crossing right at the edge of the Bay of Kotor.  We wondered whether this was all pre-planned to show off his acumen.  On the bus, Crystal was listening to podcasts, and Justin chatting with Bill and Peter about West Africa travel.  Bill was a big proponent of TransAfrica, with whom he’d recently traveled.

Once in Montenegro, basically the first thing we did was stop at a mall.  Humorously, we all got junk food.  The two of us also got some booze – wine for Crystal and some sort of rum (we think) for Justin.  We also got some chips, and Justin’s potato chips – the kettle-cooked salt chips from Cacanski – were incredible.  It took us quite a while to drive around the Bay of Kotor, as we’d arrived on the far western edge, but the city of Kotor was on the far eastern edge.  To say the drive was scenic was an understatement.  The Bay had various shades of blue, and the mountains surrounding the Bay had even more shades of green.  In the middle of one part of the Bay (one part because the Bay undulates and has three larger areas connected by narrow channels) was a church on a tiny island, Church of Our Lady of Škrpjela.

To our not surprise, but still to our horror, there was an enormous cruise ship docked in Kotor when we arrived.  The ship was literally the same size as the city, and really killed the vibe.  It also meant the city was packed.  Like Dubrovnik, Kotor is a walled city.  Unlike Dubrovnik, the walls extend way up the hillside behind the city, presumably so the city couldn’t be raided from above.  The walls looked like a miniature version of the Great Wall of China, meandering across undulating terrain above the city.  We met our local guide Tatjana, and she led us around the interior of the city.

We were standing right outside St Tryphon’s Cathedral when the noon bells rang, and we entered immediately thereafter.  The interior of the church is famous for having some famous fresco paintings.  Most of them disappeared a long time ago, not because of war or communism, but rather because whoever was in charge of the church at the time just painted over them because they weren’t “in” any more.  The ones that were painted over less well were later re-revealed, and Tatjana pointed them out to us.  We went to a couple of other churches as well (St Luke’s and St Nicholas’), and then we split at 12:30 for one hour.

Many people went to lunch together.  Peter went out to explore and grab a beer or two.  Crystal went shopping.  She saw a jug/jar she really liked, and she was quoted €120.  Apparently her face gave away this was too much, and she was immediately quoted €90.  She didn’t negotiate any further, as we’re not very good (at all) at bartering, as its entirely foreign to us.  She wanted a couple tiny bowls as well, which were 3 for €10, but the owner gave her 4 for €10.  They wrapped up everything very carefully, and then she walked around town for a little bit prior to meeting the group.  Of note, there were lots of shops with products depicting Frida Kahlo.  Kotor was not the first place we’d seen this – we’d seen it in several other places as well.  We couldn’t grasp what connection there was between she and the Balkans, but it was unexpected to see her face everywhere.

Justin made an effort to climb as far up the walls as he could.  Tatjana said it would take 45 minutes to get to the top, so he figured he could at least make some good headway before having to turn around.  It took him 6 minutes just to find the beginning of the trail, as the narrow streets in Kotor are a maze anyway, and full of people they’re hard to navigate.  It was fairly steep going up, and while there were stairs, there quite a few other tourists on the trail, so often times he had to walk on the cobblestone ramp instead of the stairs.  He made very good time, and got all the way to the top – at San Giovanni Castle – in just 22 minutes, so basically half of what Tatjana had quoted.  Since he’d made good time, he had a few minutes at the top to take in the panoramic view and catch his breath prior to descending.  His breakfast of potato chips and rum probably wasn’t the best fuel for the climb, but whatever, he’d made it.

It took him 23 minutes go get back down and to the meeting point, and he was the last to the group, but still on time.  Martin had just asked the group where Justin was, and Crystal looked around and said “oh, he’s right there.”  Tatjana was a bit flabbergasted that he’d made his way all the way to the top.  We had to wait a few minutes for Drago, and it was in blistering sun, so eventually we made our way over to a shady spot to wait until he arrived.  We proceeded to ascend the Serpentine Road, a series of over a dozen switchbacks going up the side of the mountain just to the south of Kotor. 

On the drive up the mountain, Tatjana talked uninterrupted for the first 15 minutes.  It was both amazing and also unwanted.  Justin was waiting to ask a question about something, and eventually just gave up.  As we went up the mountain we could see into the western portion of the Bay that we’d driven through earlier in the morning, and also the Adriatic in the distance.  There was also an airport (Tivat) a bit to the west of Kotor that we could see.  At a couple points we had some close passings with large buses that were descending.  One passing took a couple minutes, and we were just centimeters away from each other.  Everyone clapped when we finally got by.

While the views from inside the van were amazing, we could see a problem coming.  Tatjana had told us we were going to stop to check out the view once we were at the top of the switchbacks, but we could see a cloud bank above us that we were getting closer and closer to.  Sure enough, shortly before we reached the top, we were now in the clouds and we couldn’t see squat.  Tatjana seemed surprised, referring to clouds as “unexpected”; we all just looked at each other like Jim from the Office.  Justin told Peter this was like a metaphor for Brexit, and he got a chuckle out of that.  At the viewpoint, after a couple minutes it cleared a tiny bit – it likely would have been an amazing view on a completely clear day (or if we'd just stopped somewhere - anywhere - lower on the mountain).

Shortly after the viewpoint the road straightened out, and Tatjana told us we were outside the UNESCO area, so the road could be – and had been – widened and improved.  We stopped for wine, cheeses, prosciutto in Njeguši (we think at Restoran Zora, we’re about 90% sure).  The prosciutto was excellent, and we got to go in the room where all of the pork was aging – while interesting, the smell made it where we could stay in there only about 30 seconds.  The highlight of the stop, however, was the giant brindle old dog that was putt-putting around the grounds.  He looked to be some sort of mastiff, and also looked like he was slowing down quite a bit.  Crystal worked up courage to say hi, figuring if he had any aggression issues, he wouldn’t be allowed around people.  He reminded us of Cabo.

We got back in the van just after 15:30.  It was short drive inland to Cetinje, which was the former location of the Montenegrin Royal Palace.  Tatjana told us a lot (too much?) about the Royal Family, and King Nikola I, the final monarch.  She told us about the flag, which was a double-headed eagle.  Apparently this came from Roman Empire, and was/is used in Serbia and Albania as well.  The Kingdom was wiped off the face of the map in 1918 after the conclusion of WW1.  The King himself had been exiled in 1916, and his own grandson prevented his return after 1918.  As we were listening to all of this, one of the other guests said “she doesn’t breathe, does she?”

Inside the former royal palace, which is now called the King Nikola Museum, we couldn’t take any photos.  It was vaguely reminiscent of other royal palaces we’d visited, but on the much smaller side.  We walked through the various rooms showing how the family lived.  One room had polar bear and wolf rugs, which had obviously come quite a ways to get here.  Not long after we started walking around, everyone except for the two of us and Bill had ditched Tatjana.  At that point, we couldn’t/wouldn’t have left even if we had wanted to, as that would have been super awkward.  One of the rooms had large pictures of the Russian Royal Family and the Austrian Royal Family.  The rooms all had distinct color themes.  It was fine, but didn’t live up to the other things we’d seen and done earlier in the day.

After exiting the museum, we walked around town for 10-15 minutes.  The town seemed very quaint and tranquil, with tons of families out and about on a nice sunny day.  There was a nice pedestrian street that we walked up and down for a bit, and several parks nearby as well.  We saw the outside of the Cetinje Monastery on the way back to the van.  From Cetinje we had a nice scenic drive back towards the coast, but not the same way we’d come earlier.  We were heading south towards Budva.  The only issue with the drive was that on the final descent, we could definitely smell the brakes, and we hoped there wouldn’t be any issues.

We arrived in town just before 18:00.  Martin told us that Budva was a haven for Russian tourists, and had been hit hard since the war in Ukraine.  Our hotel (Avala Resort) was just outside the city walls.  Like Dubrovnik and Kotor, Budva had city walls surrounding the Old Town, and Budvas was about the size of Kotor, far smaller than Dubrovnik.  Our hotel room was very odd.  The room itself was quite large, but the bathroom was tiny.  And both the main room and the bathroom were not well-laid out at all, very inefficient.  It was like it had been designed by someone who had never designed a hotel before.

After dropping our stuff we walked into the walled city.  We had been told that Montenegro was far cheaper than Croatia, but that wasn’t our experience.  We walked to a couple bars that we’d researched in advance of the trip, and we were shocked at the prices.  For example, at Mañana Budva, all of the cocktails were at least €12, on par with what we’d paid at the BAR in Dubrovnik, and far more than in Belgrade or Sarajevo (not to mention home).  Also, the burger was €15, and while we didn’t want a burger, that was representative of the prices generally.  So we ended up at a beach bar that was ironically cheaper.

From our front row seat on the beach we took in the sites.  Plenty of people were on their phones, ignoring the Adriatic and the city walls.  We were watching a woman with a bag who was doing something on the beach, but we could never figure out what.  We couldn’t tell if she was putting something in the bag, taking things out the bag, or what.  There were two tourists who were out on a walkway in the sea, trying their best not to slip or get wet, and we wished them well.  After a couple of drinks we went back to the hotel for dinner, which was a buffet without a set time.

We took an elevator up from the beach level to the restaurant level, and outside the elevator on the restaurant level Justin missed a stair just outside the elevator and almost bit it.  [But seriously, who puts a stair right outside an elevator?  Just adjust the height of the elevator door.]  He’s very lucky he didn’t hurt a foot or ankle.  We went to dinner a bit after 20:00.  It wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t bad, it was rapid, and the price was right.  After dinner we went back into the walled city to hit up Kuća Pub, which we’d seen earlier whilst walking around.  Justin wanted to watch Real Madrid and Bayern play in the other Champions League semifinal. 

It was far more interesting than the match from last night, with tons of missed opportunities in the first half.  There was a family in front of us that was fairly entertaining – The dad and son were engrossed while the mom and daughter couldn’t care less.  The two women left at halftime.  Bayern scored early in the second half, but Real scored just before and just after 90 minutes and held on right at the end.  Everyone in the bar seemed happy with that result.  We left just after the match, and were back at the room around 23:15.  Crystal went straight to sleep, and Justin copied photos from the cameras to the computer.  The desk kept moving, as it wasn’t remotely level, and he cursed the hotel room before nodding off for the night.