Man!  Kotor!  This is the last stage of the trip, which means that I’ve nearly finished writing about it it, but also means the trip is nearly over.  Also, it means that the category for these posts is now incorrect, as the third country has been added.  Oh well.

Montenegro was always part of our plan for the vacation, but it was also not a part of the plan that was planned.  We just had two days earmarked for Montenegro, but that was where the planning ended.  I’d been fantasizing about just getting off the bus and allowing ourselves to be taken in by an enthusiastic old woman repeating “Apartman?  Zimmer?  Apartmen?  Room?”  But even if we had agreed to that plan ( we didn’t) we would first have to pick a city or cities in Montenegro to actually go to.

Which took us forever.

And there’s only like two towns there!

Anyhow, Kotor is consistently referred to as the crown jewel of Montenegro, and while as an American I don’t care much for crowns, but as a fancy person I care a lot for jewels.  So Kotor it was.  We left Dubrovnik via a taxi ride from our hostel owner who said the White House was made out of Croatian stone.  We never fact-checked that, but it might as well be true.

I think I had pajamas that looked like this when I was a kid.

So blahblahblah bus ride to Kotor.  The bus station was ugly, and the city had a pretty abandony-vibe around the station, so we were beginning to think the crown jewel thing was ironic.  Then we walked (too far) to the apartment we booked, and when we found it, the hosts weren’t expecting us.  Bot a good sign.  But then we saw the place, which had a giant balcony and a great view of the bay and we were stoked.

We asked our host for info about beaches, and he directed us about a half mile down the bay, where we swam in a cool rocky beach for an hour or so.  The water isn’t as clear as in the islands of Croatia, but still clearer than anything we’re used to (the Potomac) so it was great.  After we got some snacks, including some pretty gud pistachios, then headed to old town.

Gud

Um.  Anyhow, that night we wandered, took photos, ate a pretty decent dinner (finally!) and that was the ballgame.  The next day we had a big adventure, but I’ve asked Rebecca to tell us about that, because changing the voice of the blog will do everyone some good, plus I think her experience was better than mine.  (It was very high-adventure style, and I was nervous the 600 year old walls we were climbing on would get lazy on us, so I was mentally biting nails the whole time.    But more on that later.)

You know, I jsut realized we spent big chunks of our time floating in the ocean, and there are very few pictures that attest to that.  It’s becuase the camera isn’t waterproof.  Oh, there were also ridiculous traffic jams in Kotor, because the roads are barely two lanes and right next to the ocean, so one big car can mess up things for an hour.  So a big part of our day was watching traffic jams and walking betwen cars on teh road, but that also wasn’t a good time for photos…  And..  that’s that.