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See?  It’s sad.  This is our last day.

So.

We left Kotor in a really nice cab.  We usually sat in the back seat, American style, and I was never sure whether the drivers thought we were being weird.  Oh wait, that’s a lie, we didn’t leave it in a cab; we just took a cab to the bus station.  Point it, as Becca was getting in the back seat and I was about to follow her, the driver reached over and pushed the front seat way back, so as to make room for me in the front.  So I thought it would be weird if I sat in the back.  So I sat in front.  I forgot how front seats are way better.

Anyhow, we had to get to Podgorica the flights the next day.  So we took a bus to Podgorica via Cetinje, which is the old capital.  We didn’t want this to just be a travel day, and we hadn’t heard much great about P., so we figured we’d get off the bus in Cetinje and look around.  Wiorst case-scenario, we ‘d break up the drive with a lunch stop..  And that’s pretty much what happened.

In Cetinje, there’s, uh.. not a lot.  A monastery.  A tourist office.  A nice wide street with a lot of restaurants, and a fair amount of people.  We wandered around for a bit, but we didn’t see much.  There was a tour group there, though, with people we’d seen in Kotor, so it’s really a destination, or at least trying to become one.  But..  uh, I really don’t have anything to say about it.  The bus station is under construction, which means ..  I don’t even know.  Nice weather.

More main street. Wide variety of the same restaurant

We enjoyed a final lunch of pizza and beer, which is really a great lunch.  I tend to only break out the pizza-and-beer meal for dinner when I’m watching sports, but it’s a great lunch.  I should start incorporating it into regular life when I get back home.  Heck, it’s so good for lunch, might need to try it out as a breakfast.  We’ll see.  We had another nice waitress, who seemed the most American in her approach to waitressing.  I don’t totally know what I mean by that, but she conspicuously rolled her eyes at customers and complained to us (in a friendly, we’re-buddies style) about the impatience of the other tables.  There was also a table next to us with a long-winded German guy and two young Russian women who were super anxious to not be having lunch anymore.

See, I’m talking about lunch a lot because I don’t have much to say about Cetinje.  This is the last day of a fantastic trip, and this is the highlight.  Okay.  Oh, we went to the tourist office, where we were given a guide to the attractions of the city in, alas, Montenegrin.  It did have a helpful map.

The Royal Capital, or something

So..  Eventually we wanted to leave Cetinje, and eventually a bus came, and we got on it.  I sat next to a guy with terrible BO, which was kinda nice because it’s comforting to know it’s not you that’s making everyone miserable.  It was him.  He also refused to let me sit next to him until the other passengers interceded and (I think) pointed out it was the last seat on the bus.  In retrospect, I wonder if the BO was some kind of strategic move.

Oh that reminds me, I had a dream about a bright blue frog, and we (dont know who) were talking about how the color was a warning to predators.  And then another frog tried to eat it, a really big frog, and then the blue frog jumped onto the big frog’s back, then it changed to become a green frog, camouflage-like, and then it just kinda absorbed into the big frog’s body, but in the dream-like way in which it was clear that the formerly blue frog was actually taking over the body (and soul?) of the big green frog.  Now I’m talking about a dream I had.  Awesome.

We got off the bus in Podgorica a few whiles later.   Then we walked to our hostel.   And then we walked around Podgorica, which has no good restaurants (not that we’d be able to find them)  and nearly nothing cool to see.  So…  kind of a bummer of a last day, but I think at this point we were kinda toured out, so maybe it’s nice that it was….  uneventful.  I don’t know.  It would be cool to brag about going out with a bang and meeting the archduke, etc.  But we just walked around and took photos.

Oh we went to a supermarket and ordered from the prepared food counter.  That was cool.

The lesson, I guess, is that if you visit the Adriatic but time doesn’t allow an afternoon in Cetinje and Podgorica, that’s pretty much okay.  Apparently there’s some nice hiking trails a little outside of town, which maybe we would have done had we known about them.. but um..  I guess the vacation is..  uh.  like over.  Here’s a picture of the airport:

Not to be confused with Aerobactrian.  (That’s terrible.  That’s a terrible joke.  Even if the word for Airport were “Aerodromedary” it would be a bad joke.  I mean, it’s not even a joke. It’s just the first thing I thought of when I went looking for a joke, and instead of thinking even a tiny bit harder, I went with it.  It’s pathetic.  This is the last post, and the last actually inserted photo, and that’s what I’m doing.  Yeesh.  And the thing is, noticing it is not the same thing as not having done it.  This long parenthetical does not make up for anything, and it should not make me feel better about myself.  I mean, to be fair, I wrote that caption last night at like 1am and I was pretty tired, but nobody is that tired.  Sorry.)

We went there the next day, Becca at super early o’clock and me at early afternoon o’clock.  Becca went to Vienna and Frankfurt and then home.  I went to Belgrade and Budapest and Debrecen.  And that’s where I am now.  And..  here’s the rest.  Good time.

So in one of his more questionable moves, Brett asked me (me=Becca) to write up one of the posts about our trip. This is questionable because he’s painfully familiar with my sense of humor, which mostly consists of atrociously corny dad jokes that don’t make anyone laugh but me. So if you hate this post, it’s his fault, not mine.

Anyway, we had one full day in Kotor, and it was awesome. We slept in and had breakfast on the balcony, which had an incredible view of the bay, mountains, and the old city walls, which arched up the mountain like a stony medieval rainbow. Today it was our mission to conquer those very walls.

The Rainbow

Unlike the city walls in Dubrovnik, which cost $20, were packed, and required nothing more than strolling, these walls were about $5, had totally manageable numbers, and judging by how much I sweat, were a pretty legit hike. The hike was incredible. You could see the city and bay the entire time, and go into all these crumbly old pieces of tower that were covered with ivy and, I thought, looked like parts of an abandoned fairy tale castle. A lot of other people though thought they looked like bathrooms though, because a bunch of them smelled like piss urine [this is a family blog- ed.], but that’s okay.

We brought a picnic lunch, and ate it on the ledge of one of the old windows. Which means we ate lunch IN the wall! It was so cool. Our spot overlooked the other side of the mountain, and we could see all these goats and a cow and a mule just munching their grass or doing whatever they were doing in the sunshine. Maybe they were really trading stocks with Japan; we were a little too far to tell.

Lunch of champions. And cheapskates.

At the top of fortifications was St. John’s Fortress, which was more crumbly beauty. We explored that for a bit, and then began to make our way down. But to keep things interesting, we decided to see where this one overgrown path would take us. Turns out it takes you to where no man has ever gone before. Well, maybe a man in like 1497, because there were steps here and there, but definitely no man since then. So basically it was walking through a thorn forest, on no visible path, with a lot of shimmying along (and on top of!) the walls. It’s already a few days later and my legs are still totally cut up, which I think would make me look like a total badass except a) they’re totally gross and scabby and b) there’s no way anyone could ever mistake me for being a badass. Anyway, our off-trailing was awesome, mainly because we didn’t die, and we eventually found our way back down.

After that, we grabbed a beer, took a quick swim in the bay, and then picked up some stuff to cook dinner, which we ate under the stars on our balcony while looking at the walls, which are lit up at night. All in all, it was a total five-star day.

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.

Someone suggested the other day (you know who you are) that it seems like I didn’t enjoy Croatia.  Which isn’t the case.  What I think happened is that I don’t enjoy crowds, and Croatia being so lovely, there are a lot of people, a lot of crowds, a lot of non-enjoying Brett.  But whenever we left the crowds, it was awesome.

That is the island of which we speak

Case in point: Lokrum.  Lokrum is a small island off the coast of Dubrovnik.  It’s been used previously as a location for a French fort, and a monastery, and..  some other things.  And now it’s an awesome swimming spot and apparently a peacock reserve and a place with one really nice waiter.  At least one really nice water.  My point is that we went to get a snack and the waiter was really nice, but he was the only one we interacted with, so I can’t speak to the quality of the other waiters.

Anyhow, we knew this island existed, but we were kinda on the fence about it, because you had to take a boat there.  The forecast called for rain, so we didn’t want to get stuck in a thunderstorm on an island with no shelter, so we thought we’d just keep hanging around town, maybe find a beach there.  But then we were walking by the ferry to the island which was just about to leave, so we thought we’d just jump on, make a last minute decision.  So we hurriedly bought the tickets and then found out the ferry we were looking out was already sold out and we’d have to take the next one.  Not a big deal, but made it seem less like a fun rash last minute decision.

Anyhow, what’s the point?  The island is 15 minutes away, and it is totally awesome.  None of the crowds of the city, but with a fantastic view of the coast. Tons of peacocks making their weird peacock noises.  Rocky cliffs you could jump into the water from, as well as a ton of ladders on the coast for the jumping-from-cliffs averse.  Even showers so you could rinse off.  And a bathroom!  And trails going all over the island from one pile of old ruins to another.  And no crowds!  Really superb.  So basically we went swimming and then hiked and then went swimming and then had snacks, etc.  And then took the boat back to town.  So, the best part about Dubrovnik technically involves leaving Dubrovnik, it is very awesome and you should do it.

Unless you hate peacocks.  Then don’t go.  You will hate it.