Sunday, November 25
Today we had an 11:00 am bus from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Budva, Montenegro. There were two problems to solve. 1. The weather was forecast to rain all day. 2: How best to minimize the stairs in order to get someplace where a car could pick us up. Carrying our luggage up a long, steep staircase on wet slippery stone steps was going to be a challenge. Normally we’d strive to keep our bags on the light side but since we’ve been traveling for over a year we had to pack more than usual. With two suitcases that weigh just under the airplane legal limit of 50 pounds and two rather heavy carry-ons (plus a tennis racket plus a backpack with lunch, the leftover oranges, etc.) it was going to be a challenge. We decided that the best way would be to walk down the stairs to the main street, across the old town and up the ramps to the Pile Gate. It was a much longer route but going down instead of up would be easier and we could roll our luggage the rest of the way. We were ready by 8:30 am, and since the rain had temporarily abated, we decided to make a run for it. We got to the bus station two hours early but at least we were dry.
Once again the bus trip was down the narrow, winding coast roads. We traveled parallel to the sea but couldn’t see very far due to the low lying clouds. This time the border crossing was rather easy. We simply handed our passports to the bus driver and he handed them to a border agent who stamped them. This was the fourth and last time that we would be leaving Croatia (the first time was on a day trip to Slovenia, the second time was to go to Bosnia and the third and fourth times were coming from Bosnia to Dubrovnik where we had to cross the border twice). At the border to Montenegro we got off the bus and handed our passports to an agent who scanned them and stamped them. No strip searches this time.😉
Getting from the bus station in Budva to our apartment was another little challenge. The fact that the building doesn’t have a number wasn’t a big deal because the street doesn’t have a name! Our host gave us the GPS coordinates for the building and told us to tell the taxi driver the name of the neighborhood. Surprisingly, it worked rather well and we arrived with little trouble. To get to the apartment we had to climb one regular staircase and one very long staircase to get to the third floor. Of course, it goes without saying that the town is built on the side of a hill and we have to climb quite a few stairs just to get to our street. Why does this keep happening to us?! At least in this case there is a tangible benefit. The living room wall in our apartment that faces the water is all glass and leads to a balcony that has a commanding view of the bay and the entire new town. It’s a stunning sight.
(View from our Balcony on a Cloudy Day)
After settling in we headed out to explore and buy some supplies. By now it had started raining again, the temperate had dropped and the wind had begun to blow. It was rather unpleasant. We saw just a little of the waterfront district before ducking into a supermarket. Not being able to find packages of chopped meat Deborah asked at the deli counter. The man responded by picking up a beautiful looking hunk of beef and pointing to a grinder. Deborah nodded her ascent and we walked out with fresh ground beef. You don’t see that everyday.
On the way home we found a 24 hour bakery called, “Good Food” that had some nice looking baked goods. We bought some burek and some pastries to eat for dinner.
It’s clear that neither of us is fully well just yet. By 8:00 pm we were exhausted. I went to bed and Deborah followed soon after.
Distance walked: 3.3 miles
Monday, November 26
We headed out to see the old town. It’s just a 15 minute walk from our apartment. The forecast called for rain for most of the day.
Walking along we were really quite surprised at what we saw. Budva is a clean, modern Western European style city. They even use the EURO as their currency. We had expected something more Balkan – something similar to Sarajevo. There’s no doubt that the town exists to service the tourist trade. There are sleek, modern hotels everywhere and big brand name shops along the streets. Near the waterfront there are food stalls and rides that reminded us of the kind of thing you might see at Coney Island or Atlantic City. There is also a promenade that extends all the way around the bay. We spied a small peninsula about two miles outside of town that is said to have some nice beaches. If we get a chance we will walk down there and take a look.
Walking along it’s hard to miss the old city. All of a sudden there is large clearing where you can see high stone walls enclosing a large swath of land. On one side the walls are built on rocks abutting the sea. The rain and wind was causing high waves to crash on the walls. There was spray everywhere. It was a lovely sight.
(Old Town Fortress)
We entered the old city through one of the gates and found long, narrow, winding streets that are typical of Medieval towns. The streets were lined with shops catering to tourists. There were a number of restaurants, jewelry stores and souvenir shops. As expected there were also several churches and monasteries. The fortress contains an archeological museum from which you can climb some of the towers. Given that it was a Monday and the off-season many of the shops were closed. Still, we walked most of the streets and tried to take it all in. When we exited the other side we found a marina filled with large boats waiting to take tourists out on excursions.
We re-entered the old town through another gate and walked to the other side and had lunch at a restaurant that had a patio overlooking the sea. They actually had two patios – one open to the air and one covered. Since it was raining we choose to sit in the covered one.
It was a huge restaurant that could easily accommodate several hundred customers. Including ours there were only two tables in use. The restaurant, part of the Astoria Hotel, had a nice selection of seafood items. Deborah ordered the seafood risotto and I ordered the grilled calamari. The risotto was heaped with shrimp, mussels and squid. My dish had a melange of tentacles, potatoes and chard surrounded by large squid bodies. Both were absolutely delicious. Squid is caught all along the Eastern coast of the Adriatic and is a local speciality. It’s fresh, tasty and full of flavor; they really know how to prepare it properly so it isn’t the least bit rubbery. The portions were huge and we wound up taking about half of the risotto home with us. Total cost: €33.00 / $37.25.
(Grilled Squid for Lunch)
After lunch we walked back towards our apartment along the sea using the promenade. There were lots of small beaches; some were predominately rocky and some were sandy. We stopped at a post office to get our Montenegro stamps. They didn’t seem to have any collections or sets so we settled for a single stamp. It cost €0.95 / $1.09. The exchange rates have generally been going in our favor. When this trip started in November of 2017 the rate between the EURO and the DOLLAR was about 1.20. Now it’s 1.13. Nice!
We got our credit card statement today and found something interesting. There was a cash advance (and a service charge and an interest charge for same) shown in the exact amount that we’d paid for our postage stamps in Sarajevo. A call to the credit card company revealed that in some countries vendors put through charges as CASH instead of CREDIT in order to save on the credit card fees. We thought that the only way to authorize a cash advance was by putting in our pin code, which we certainly did not do. We were shocked! We get realtime alerts on our phone for our charges and it never indicated that it was a cash advance; it looked like a normal charge. The credit card company finally “fixed” the issue but it took over 50 minutes on the phone. The person on the other end didn’t seem to understand that interest on cash advances accrue daily and that simply paying the bill in total would not wipe out the amount. We had to explain it to them!!!! We’ve been pretty happy with the credit card services that we get from Capital One but their customer service leaves a lot to be desired.
Distance walked: 3.4 miles