Montenegro, Hercig Novi and return to Croatia

After the inconvenience of not being able to check out and pay the bill without first going to a cash machine we were glad to finally leave Kamaria and head back towards the border and Croatia.

After a short while we arrived on the outskirts of the fortified town of Hercig Novi and although the main road was dusty and scruffy it seemed bad manners not to pull off into the side streets and visit the old town. This was easier said than done because this is another town with a parking problem and we crawled in a queue of traffic as everyone was searching for a space. Finally we found one as close to the old town as we were likely to get so we accepted that this was the best we would be able to do. It said that it was a pay car park but there was no ticket machine or attendant so we were thoroughly confused. I made enquiries in a couple of shops and finally established that tickets were on sale at the newsagents so I bought two hours and nervously left the car. There were some conscientious parking wardens scrutinising windscreens and tickets and a yellow mini being towed away on a car transporter and I began to worry that I hadn’t understood the procedure and might come back to find the car removed and a long walk back to Mlini.

It was quite a long walk along the busy road and getting hotter under the late morning sun so were glad to reach the entrance to the Stari Grad old town and find some respite from the impatient traffic and the increasing heat. Inside the old gate and within the confines of the walls there were a succession of basking squares with an unhurried pace of life and we walked from one to the other to take in the sights. We were immediately glad that we had stopped off because this was really very nice and most probably a place easily missed by tourists heading for Kotor and Budva going one way and Dubrovnik going the other.

After the squares we climbed a stairway of worn shiny steps to get to the entrance of the fortress which stands at the top of the town overlooking the harbour below. Inside there were walls to walk and views to admire, nothing like Dubrovnik of course, but pleasant all the same and worth the small admission fee. It didn’t take long to complete the visit to the fortress so we walked back down and had a welcome cold drink in a bar in the main square next to the town’s old drinking fountain and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the centre.

After a short rest we walked the other way through twisting lanes and down steep steps towards the harbour but it was a long way, very hot and time was running out on our two hour parking ticket so we abandoned the walk at the half way stage and climbed back to the squares with their balconied buildings and tall shady trees and then retraced our steps back to the car which was exactly where we left it and no parking ticket tucked under the windscreen wipers either.

Getting out of Hercig Novi was no easier than getting in and we sat in a snarling traffic jam and followed the line of cars through the narrow one-way system and finding the right road included quite a lot of guesswork because although there was a sign for every hotel and grill bar the road signs had a curious absence of helpful information if you are looking for directions to the next town but eventually we threaded our way to the main road and prepared to leave Montenegro.

There was a wait again at the border as the immigration police thoroughly checked the documents of a convoy of camper vans from the Netherlands and as we waited we reflected on the Montenegro experience. We had liked it but not as much as we expected to, there was a clear sense of being somewhere different, even more so than Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2008 and to be honest we were glad to be going back to Croatia and we took a leisurely drive back to Mlini and the Villa Carmen.

We had a different room this time, not as good as the first but with a nice secluded balcony, which was cool and surrounded by greenery but required the precaution of plenty of insect repellent. After we had settled in we walked to Mlini for lunch at our favourite restaurant and then just let the rest of the day slide away as we swam in the soft blue water of the Adriatic and then sat at the edge of the water getting a swim suit full of tiny pebbles that we later transferred to the hotel room when we got changed.

Sitting on the terrace in the early evening we watched the colours of the sea and the sky go through their daily transformation and I was struck with how different it is here to Greece. In the Cyclades the sky is a consistent blue that explodes into a vivid sunset but here I have always found it more subtle with a greater variation and range of colour as the sky goes through several stages as it progresses through to the end of the day.

And the end of the day meant a final stroll into Mlini and another meal at the favourite restaurant which may not have been very adventurous or imaginative but we liked it there and we enjoyed an excellent final meal.

Montenegro, Hotel Casa del Mare

The Casa del Mare it has to be said was a curious hotel; a bizarre mix of excellence, comic and incompetence. This had started the moment that we arrived when a paperwork mix-up (their description) had led to confusion about room allocation, which turned out well for us because we had to be upgraded to one of the best rooms in the small eight bedroom hotel which we didn’t mind at all.

The owners were friendly, in fact I would have to say too friendly because it was impossible to get past reception without being intercepted and bombarded with far too much advice to be taken in all in one go but this was something we had to get used to even though generally speaking I prefer to go straight to my room or the bar or the restaurant without unnecessary conversation.

The room was first class with deliciously cool air-conditioning, modern furniture and bright cheerful decoration and there was nothing there to fault at all except the safe wasn’t bolted down and if anyone was minded to steal our valuables they could simply have walked out with the whole thing under their arm! Still, we were confident that wasn’t going to happen so we just found it amusing.

The al fresco restaurant was good, set in manicured gardens with modern furniture and immaculately clean and on account of this we decided to eat there on the first night and selected a table on the terrace. The waiter brought the menus and we made our selections from a huge choice while children with a family on the next table ran around and made a nuisance of themselves. This wasn’t a problem in itself except it looked dangerous to me when they kept getting under the waiters feet as he delivered food from the kitchens.

Now, the menu was fine but there was far too much on it and this didn’t assist decision making but this wasn’t a real problem either because the poor waiter was so busy that he didn’t return to take our order for almost fifteen minutes. When he finally turned up we ordered a bottle of white wine, a starter to share and a main course each.

The white wine selection put him in a spin because he didn’t have any pre chilled so he farcically tried to cool a bottle down in an ice bucket and resisted our attempts to drink it before he had dropped the temperature a degree or two. I think I would have just stuck it in the freezer for a minute ten minutes or so. Anyway, we insisted on drinking it as it was and he had to concede.

Then we had to wait another fifteen minutes for the first course to arrive, which turned out to be an excellent plate of food that we polished off quickly but then had to wait another thirty minutes for the main course which was sadly disappointing. When we had finished he apologised for the delays and advised us that he could speed things up tomorrow if we could choose our meals some time in advance.

This seemed sensible but I did expect this to mean first thing in the morning and the next day when we sat down for breakfast he immediately started to pester us about tonight’s evening meal and quite honestly this was a bit too soon for me to think about tonight’s main course let alone select it!

Breakfast was excellent, certainly one of the best hotel buffet breakfasts that we have had but he would keep banging on about fish and lobster and mussels for later on and we weren’t ready to make this choice just yet. He had another weird quirk of making us sign for the tea and coffee, which I thought was odd because breakfast was included in the rate. I asked him why and he said not to worry it was just for his records! I cannot even begin to imagine what this was all about.

After we had been out for the day we returned to the hotel at about six o’clock and he immediately pounced – did we know what we wanted to eat yet? We didn’t really but indulged him and asked for mussels. ‘Black or white?’ he enquired and when I looked puzzled he took us to the kitchen to show us the white variety. They were scallops, so we said ok but we would like some ordinary (black) mussels as well and for main course we would choose from the menu and went to the room confident that this would speed things up.

We choose red wine tonight so we didn’t have the cooling down routine and although service should have been quicker we had drunk three quarters of it before the starter arrived – just four scallops and no mussels and they weren’t even cooked very well! I asked for the mussels and it was his turn to look puzzled and he explained that we hadn’t ordered them. I didn’t want to argue with him but I thought that was the whole point of ordering early! When he returned to clear the plates I told him that we hadn’t enjoyed the scallops that much and he went into shock and demanded an explanation. And then the receptionist came to make the same enquiry and then the owner and I was beginning to wish I had just done the decent British thing and kept my dissatisfaction to myself.

I knew it was going to take a long time again because thirty minutes after ordering the main course he came back and asked us to remind him what we had chosen. I asked for some beer and he asked why and I explained as best I could that it taken so long for the food to arrive that we had drunk all the wine! The kids ran about again until one of them crashed into a plate glass window which slowed him down a lot and we sat and waited. And we waited for another thirty minutes until the main course arrived by which time it had taken so long that we no longer had an appetite for it so we ate about half of it and left.

At breakfast the next morning he aplogised several times but was careful to point out that it really was our own fault because we clearly didn’t know the difference between black and white mussels and we should have ordered earlier. And here was the real problem with the menu – there was just too much on it, the chef was providing too many selections when he should have been concentrating on a manageable number and I gave this advice on my feedback form later. The waiter did seem genuinely concerned that we hadn’t enjoyed our meal and brought us something special to compensate – a bowl of luke-warm chocolate mousse! We were dumbfounded and speechless and I still am.

Overall we did like the hotel and mostly we were amused more than irritated but we were glad to be leaving and going back to Croatia. But even this wasn’t as straight forward as it should have been because when we checked out the credit card payment machine was broken down and so they wanted payment in cash. I didn’t have enough Euros in my wallet so had to drive to a cash point three kilometres away in nearby Bijela and then return with the money where everyone else who wanted to check out this morning was having exactly the same problem.

An interesting place the Casa del Mare hotel. I won’t be going back!

Montenegro, Sveti Stefan and Budva

The next stage of the drive took us through and out of the National Park and on to the city of Cetinje, which, for a big city, had a curious absence of helpful road signs and we drove around the same streets several times looking for the main coast road. Cetinje didn’t look especially exciting on a lazy Sunday afternoon, a old-fashioned sort of place with wide, tree-lined boulevards and grand public buildings, many of them fallen into disuse. Apparently the Government is currently moving some administrative buildings back into Cetinje, but for now it a backwater ghost town, with a sleepy sun-baked air and once we had received reliable instructions from a taxi driver on how to get out we drove straight through.

We were back on a main road now where the drivers were able to demonstrate their full repertoire of recklessness and we were glad when we reached the coast and our first destination, the picturesque island hotel complex of Sveti Stefan just south of Budva. This former fishing village perches on an outcrop of rock, connected to the mainland by a causeway. In the 1960s the entire village was converted to a luxury hotel, with a hundred-odd guest rooms in the original stone cottages.

Inside, apparently, there are sculpted gardens and narrow alleyways overhung with flowers, two small chapels and wonderful views out to sea. The hotel was once the preserve of the rich and famous, the likes of Princess Margaret and Sophia Loren feature in the guestbook. I say apparently though because after we had parked the car and walked to the entrance we were turned back by a security guard who informed us that the whole place was closed for renovations. We had planned to spend an hour or so here so we would have had time to stop in Cetinje after all but now we had to move on to Budva slightly ahead of schedule.

Budva is Montenegro’s busiest holiday resort and as soon as we drove in I was glad we weren’t staying there. There was a lot of construction and road works because Montenegro is impatient to rebuild its tourist industry that disintegrated after the war and I think they plan for this place to be their Benidorm or Lido de Jesilo because the place was full of noisy cafés and tacky bars and the holidaymakers there wore bright colours, rude tee shirts and had tattoos. In my opinion this is probably the last thing that Montenegro needs, I didn’t like it but we stopped anyway to take a look.

Actually it was much nicer around the harbour area but it was still a mixture of traditional, elegant modern and horrible holiday grunge as though the city hasn’t yet fully made up its mind what it wants to be. The old town however was delightful and although I say old town it technically isn’t because Budva is well known for the earthquake it suffered in 1979, after which the whole town had to be rebuilt and it took eight years for it to be completely finished. There were some nice shady streets and a fortress wall (€3 admission) but it was small and that was about all so we left, sat down for an afternoon drink in a bar where the waiters were more interested in the World Cup match on the television than the customers (Montenegro’s close neighbour Serbia were playing Ghana) and after a beer we paid and left for the return journey.

Once again, due to the shortage of road signs, I had a bit of trouble finding the right road out of the city but eventually we groped and guessed our way out and found the road back to Kotor where we stopped at a supermarket for evening alcohol supplies and then returned along the coast road that we had used earlier this morning. In a little village called Prčan overlooking the town of Dobrota on the other side of the bay we stopped for a drink in a bar and commiserated with the local Serbian football supporters when Ghana scored in the last minute and stole the game 1-0. After that we dawdled along the coast road, annoying anyone else who happened to be on the road at the same time and then caught the ferry back to Kamaria for a second evening at the Casa del Mare where we started with a game of two of cards where I continued a dazzling winning streak that had started on the outward flight and a couple of Niksickos on the balcony.

Montenegro, Lovcen National Park

We had another busy day planned today and quite a long drive so we woke early and after breakfast set off in the car towards the National Park of Lovcen with a plan to go from there to the coast and visit Sveti Stefan and Budva.

This time, to reduce the journey time we took the short ten-minute ferry ride from Kamaria across the narrowest part of the Bay, the Verige strait and once back on dry land we choose the slower but more scenic coast road to Kotor. This was very picturesque but as the driver I couldn’t fully appreciate it because the road was so awful and the drivers so bad that I had to keep my wits about me at all times. The best description I can find for Montenegrin drivers is frightening, terrifying even, because they are completely reckless and crazy. Seat belts are rarely worn and speed limits are almost always ignored, thirty means fifty, forty means sixty and so on. ‘No Overtaking’ signs mean leave it until the last moment and take a risk, ‘Give Way’ means keep going and ‘Stop’ means ‘It’s up to you!’

Eventually we reached the southern outskirts of Kotor and drove through the blighted parts of the city well away from the main tourist centre and then took a sharp turn to the right to leave the main highway and join the mountain road to the country’s old capital of Cetinje. At first the road climbed slowly and swayed through the trees at the first stages of the climb and it wasn’t especially attractive either, as we drove through a succession of gypsy camps, rubbish tips and abandoned clutter in the lay-bys. As we climbed it began to improve however and the road became more exciting and hazardous as it lunged like a roller-coaster through hair-pin bends that became more frequent and progressively tighter as we went up. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of traffic to deal with because this road was not wide enough for two cars and it was certain that a Montenegrin motorist would not have given way.

Along the way we stopped as often as we could to admire the great views which although it was hazy and the sunshine was gently diffused were still stunning. From this height we could see that the bay is composed of several smaller broad bays, linked together by narrower channels, which forms one of the finest natural deep water harbours in Europe. Spread out below us was the Bay of Tivat and a small naval port, currently being transformed into a state of the art Super Yacht Marina called Porto Montenegro and beyond that the Bay of Herceg Novi, which guards the main entrance to the Bay of Kotor. The inner bays that we had driven around yesterday are the Bay of Risan to the northwest and the Bay of Kotor to the southeast. Directly below us, on the landward side, the long walls running from the fortified old town of Kotor to the castle of Saint John were now as far below our feet as they were above our heads the day before.

Once again there were a number of road signs that had been used for target practice and in places the drive seemed remote and edgy and I had visions of being held up at gunpoint by bandits but I didn’t share this scaremongering piece of information. I did regret not bringing a mobile phone out between us however.

When we reached the top we were at nearly one thousand seven hundred metres (three hundred metres higher than Ben Nevis) and the road flattened out as we entered the Lovcen National Park and drove across a green plateau criss-crossed with limestone fissures and craggy rocks and wild meadows full of flowers and butterflies. It didn’t occur to me that the roads could get any worse but sure enough they did as they became narrower and more pot holed and sometimes with great areas of the tarmac missing altogether. This didn’t slow the Montenegrins down at all and they still continued to speed around and I became convinced that some of them simply pointed their cars at us, closed their eyes and accelerated.

At a confusing cross roads there were local people selling the local delicacies of smoked ham and sir cheese and I had to stop for directions. We were close to our destination now, Njeguši, the origins of the Montenegrin royal family of Petrović and as we climbed the final stretch we passed winter snow now in its final rapid thaw. Thousands of people make a National pilgrimage here to the Mausoleum of Njegoš and most of them were here today because parking was a nightmare. We eventually found a spot and then climbed the four hundred and forty steps to the top for more stunning views. We didn’t pay the €3 to go in however because we suspected that there might not be an awful lot to see and the guidebook confirmed later that this was a good decision.

On the way back down the mountain the roads were filling up with local people driving out for a picnic and at one blind bend a death wish driver in a white Volvo almost took us out but somehow managed to avoid us at the very last second so this necessitated a short stop for a drink to steady the nerves and an underpants check!

Montenegro, The Bay of Kotor

Once past the border, in front of us we could see mountains again and after we passed through the busy and rather untidy city of Herceg Novi the road reached the sea and started to follow the winding coast line of the picturesque Bay of Kotor and in front of us now was one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions.

After a short while we arrived at the town of Kamaria and identified our hotel, the Casa del Mare, which was a brand new boutique hotel where we had one of the best rooms with an expansive view over the Bay, the main road and the recycling bins. After we had checked out the mini-bar prices and settled in we took some advice from the hotel owner on where to go and what to see we then set off to circumnavigate the Bay and drive to Kotor on the other side.

There was a ferry boat across the narrowest point of the Bay but we had decided to drive the forty kilometres or so and stop now and again along the way. The first stop came quite soon at a lay-by with a good view both east and west and looking across to the Italianate town of Perast, once an important independent Venetian ship building town but now a modern tourist trap. There was a jewellery stall in one corner of the lay-by and while Kim looked at sparkly things on chains I examined an information board about the Bay. In the middle were about twenty clear holes about the thickness of a pencil and on closer examination I realised that they were bullet holes. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end because whoever had been using it for target practice was clearly a very good shot and it occurred to me that I could be in someone’s rifle sights even as I stood there.

I was beginning to become aware that Montenegro might be a bit different to anywhere else that I had been before and I wasn’t inclined to hang around the lay-by any longer than necessary so I encouraged Kim to hurry up and leave and we carried on around the Bay of Risan passing yet more radar speed traps on the way to Perast.

Here was a place with a parking problem with a single road not wide enough for two cars to pass and no parking spaces. At the far end of the town I found one but before I had switched off the engine a waiter from a restaurant came out, explained that it was only for customers and shooed us off. The odd thing was that he didn’t take the trouble to ask if we wanted to use the restaurant and we might have done because it was just about lunchtime but not now after that unfriendly welcome.

So we drove back to the other end of the town and parked right on the edge and walked along the seafront and back to the centre. It was very quiet with very little activity and this was probably because now it was very hot indeed. We walked around the pretty centre with its church and a few shops, up and down some steps that didn’t go anywhere in particular and then found a place for a beer and a spot of lunch right on the water’s edge.

After a debate about whether or not to take a boat across the Bay to two islands with churches on them we decided against the €5 charge and as the time was getting on and lots of tourist coaches were turning up and overwhelming the town with visitors returned to the car and continued our journey. This took us through a string of attractive villages all around the seashore and towards the eastern end of the Bay where the backdrop was a wall of limestone mountain soaring over a thousand metres high and squeezing the towns and villages in between the rock and the sea.

My driving was continuing to irritate people and several times I was tooted and invited to pull over by motorists using hand signals that you won’t find in the Highway Code but I didn’t let this intimidate me and I continued sedately on, pulling over whenever I could to let agitated motorists pass me by.

Eventually we arrived in Kotor without incident and it was much bigger than I imagined it would be from the descriptions in the travel guides and there was a two thousand passenger cruise liner tied up at the dock which was so huge it dwarfed the town and looked sadly at out of place. We needed a car park and found one around the side of the town where a grumpy attendant gave us a ticket and explained the tariff and then we set off into the old town to explore.