Thursday 18th April
We were up at 4:30am (way too early to be a real time in my opinion) and hopped on the surprisingly busy shuttle bus to the airport.
It’s so crazy that the airport and the train station are the same building.
Just as well we left ourselves the recommended 2 hours before flying, because that is exactly how long it took us to get through checkin, security and passport control!
The Dutch are living in the future. We went to pull out our laptops and liquids and were told that we don’t need to! The security here looks futuristic, the technology is all newer than all the other airports we’ve been through so nothing needs to be removed from the bags. They also only have the full body scanners and so everyone goes through them. It was all so efficient, but somehow still took a long time to get through, and both our bags got pulled aside for training purposes.
We then had to pass through passport control and immigration which was a first when leaving a country.
Goodbye Holland, Hello Montenegro (via Croatia)!
Flying into Croatia was absolutely stunning! The rugged mountains, and deep blue water were unlike anything I’ve ever seen, it was beautiful! The airport was so small, it felt like flying into Coffs!
We landed in Dubrovnik, Croatia and met our driver who picked us up and drove us to Montenegro. He had a sign with my name on it and everything, it was so cool!
"Why did you fly into Croatia?" I hear you ask, basically, it’s not super easy (or cheap) to get to Montenegro, so we had to fly into Croatia and then drive down. This was the only flight we could get and then to catch a bus we would have had to get into Dubrovnik city and then wait six hours for a bus, so we decided to just get ourselves a transfer direct from the airport.
Our driver was a super nice guy, very friendly and quite funny. He drove us round the coast (which was unbelievably beautiful) to a smaller border crossing to save time as the main crossing usually takes a while, but it was shut! So we had to backtrack and go to the main crossing, which was really busy. In the end we were sat at the border for an hour and a half. We first had to pass through the Croatian border to leave, and then sat in no-mans land for a couple of km, then we passed through the Montenegrin border to enter Montenegro. It was all a very long process, but the scenery was stunning.
Driving through the countryside, we just can’t get over the beauty, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before!
We passed through a couple of very developing towns that had us a little worried as to what we had come to, but then we arrived in a cute little town where we caught a car ferry to the other side of the bay! We’ve caught a bus, plane, car, and now ferry all in one day!
We arrived in Muo, where are our apartment was and it is beautiful! We’re right at the end of Kotor bay and directly opposite Kotor Old Town, we’ve definitely got the best view from this side of the bay!
One of the apartment staff were waiting to meet us to give us the key, show us around and tell us about the area. They were so friendly as well.
Oh. My. Goodness. The apartment is incredible! It’s our own villa! And it has the most incredible views over the bay! We are so lucky to be staying here, it’s amazing! Thanks Anne and John!
After settling in and getting our heads around the fact that we get to stay here for two weeks (!) we went for a little walk to the local grocery store “Idea”. It very much feels like we are on the more local side of the bay. There is no footpath, we just walk on the road and the cars avoid you, and there’s locals chilling at the couple of cafes. On our way over we see our taxi driver at a little local cafe he told us about so we stop and say hi, feeling very welcomed!
The supermarket has the strangest selection of products, but meat is affordable here! Yayyy!!!! We carried our groceries back the most scenic grocery walk we’ve ever done and hang out on the balcony for afternoon, looking at the unbelievable view! Those mountains are incredible and the way the afternoon light hits them is just like something out of a picture!
As night falls we see the city walls light up making the shape of a lion! The lights of the towns on that side of the bay, and the city walls reflect beautifully on the water and the reflection of the walls looks like a heart! It’s amazing! It’s all different kinds of beautiful at night as well!
While we were standing on the balcony some fireworks went off in a town further down the bay! What an incredible first night!
We fall asleep looking out at our lion, just blown away by how uniquely beautiful it is here.
Friday 19th April
What a view to wake up to! Dayummm I can't believe where we are! It is just incredible! It is so beautiful!
There was cruise ship in our harbour this morning! I know Kotor is up and coming but I was surprised to see a big cruise ship!
The pool in the complex is drained and there are people working in it, so we spent the day on our balcony just relaxing and marvelling at the view while enjoying the sunshine. We also made a call home to say hi and catch up, and show them our view!
Being Good Friday, we of course had fish for dinner. Although, both of us not being massive fish eaters and due to the grocery store having an odd assortment of products, our Good Friday meal consisted of fish fingers, chips and veggies! I also may or may not have had a packet of vinegar with me still from Ireland for my chips!
It was an incredibly clear night and a full moon so we pulled out the cameras and spent the evening playing with photographing the moon and cloud banks passing it.
We then once again fell asleep to our beautiful lion on the rocks and the reflection of the twinkling town lights on the water.
Saturday 20th April
We woke up to not only one, but two cruise ships in our harbour today! I'm starting to think it's a popular place!
We spent the morning relaxing out on the balcony in the sunshine, and marvelling at the beauty. I can't believe this place is real, I mean dayyyummmm, look at those mountains!
Later on in the day we went for a walk around the bay to hunt down some easter eggs!
I'd done my research and found that chocolate easter eggs aren't really a thing in Montenegro, rather the tradition is to paint boiled eggs and give them to each other. This explains why we couldn't find any the other day. There is however another grocery store within a complex in the town of Dubrota on the opposite side of the bay, so we went for a walk to see if they would have any as it is the more touristy side of the bay.
Nada. Not a single chocolate egg!
There is a very different feeling on this side of the bay. It is much more touristy, and so many more people! We hadn't passed a single non-local before we came to this side of the bay. There are expensive looking yachts in the harbour, restaurants everywhere, palm trees, and it's all nice and clean and with a proper road and beautiful old buildings.
So we strolled back around the bay to our grocery store to pick up a few things and have one last hopeful look for easter eggs but we couldn't see any. Well, it was worth a try. Hang on! Someone just walked past with a packet of small eggs in their basket! Where are they?? We quickly did laps up and down the isles, and then there they are, I spot them, on the end of the check out, a box full of "Happy eggs", Yay!!! Success!!
We headed back to the apartment very chuffed with our "Happy Eggs". We were saying to each other though, while the Old Town Kotor seems really nice, it also feels very touristy, so it's quite nice to have the experience of staying on the more local side of the bay to get a more local experience, while still getting to enjoy Old Town. We also get beautiful views of old town, and the city walls, not only during the day but at night from our side, which you wouldn't see if you were staying in Kotor.
What we also realised today is that while the whole bay is the Bay of Kotor, there are lots of tiny towns scattered around the bay all so close to each other. We are staying in Muo, we walked through Škaljari which is where our local grocery store is, then passed Kotor Old Town, then into Dubrota for the other grocery store, all on a 30min walk round the tip of the bay!
We had a lovely evening on the balcony watching the sun go down and the lion come out!
Sunday 21st April
Happy Easter!
We woke up and Sam had hidden an egg hunt for me!! I was going to do one for him but he beat me to it!
So our morning was spent scurrying around making egg hunts for each other and then finding each others eggs. It was such fun! This then turned into an easter egg photoshoot!
After of course eating a few chocolates for brekkie (it's ok, its allowed on easter), we had real breakfast out on the balcony, looking at the beautiful scene in front of us, soaking in the warmth from the sun, and people watching as the cruise ships pulled into the bay for the day.
I spent some time writing and then we just had a perfect Sunday chilling out, enjoying the day from the balcony.
Monday 22nd April
You know what Monday's mean!! Game of Thrones!
We woke up and watched Game of Thrones in bed first thing. Oh. My. Word. What an episode.
We then had brekkie on the balcony looking at our stunning views.
The rest of the day was spent chilling, enjoying the balcony, and catching up on writing.
Tuesday 23rd April
The weather wasn't fantastic today and storms were predicted so we had a nice relaxing day in the apartment.
We spent some time talking to friends back home before nipping down to get some groceries before the rain started.
It was cozy being inside watching the dark cloud roll in down over the mountains and the far end of the bay become obscured by fog. It was so windy all day, and by the afternoon there were white caps in our bay!
Early in the evening, the sky became very dark and the storm started, lightening, wind, and rain. It was a very cozy night watching the rain hitting the glass doors and hearing it patter down on the roof.
Sam and I got inventive for dinner tonight. We saw that there was a proper butcher section in the grocery store and that meat was affordable!!! (so exciting) So we thought we'd try and make tacos but we've found that Mexican food really isn't a big thing in many European countries. So we thought we would try making a gozleme after having it the other day in Rotterdam.
Well, we invented some kind of hybrid I think. We used tortilla/pitta bread style wrap with mince, a tomato spaghetti sauce with carrot in it, onion, corn, feta, and rocket (they don't have spinach). We then folded it like a quesadilla and fried it in a frypan with some butter on both sides.
I don't know what we created, but by golly, it was delicious!!! I'm thinking it could be a new dish for the recipe book! We have named it "The Mediterranean Taco".
Wednesday 24th April
Today was the day we were going to climb the city walls. From all the reading we had done on it, everyone said to do it on a clear day for the amazing views. Well, we woke up to a cloudy, hazy day, although it was meant to clear by early afternoon, so we enjoyed the morning in our beautiful apartment catching up on writing, and enjoying the stunning views from our balcony.
The skies cleared around early-mid afternoon, so we slapped on some sunscreen, popped some water (ok lots of water) and cameras in the day pack and headed out. We made our now familiar walk from our side of the bay in Muo, past our grocery store, and over to Kotor Old Town.
We weaved our way through the streets towards where we thought the wall started (from looking at it everyday from our apartment). After scrambling up a very steep and slippery cobbled/ rocky street, and a few kittens, sure enough we found the start of the climb.
Oh. My. Goodness. There were so. many. stairs! and they were so steep! It was a much harder climb than I anticipated, but it was so much fun, and the view was absolutely incredible.
The path up is a set of narrow, worn steps, and directly next to that is a rocky, cobbled slope. Obviously it was much easier (and safer) to walk on the stairs but when we were passing people coming down, we shakily had to step over to this side.
The climb up was absolutely stunning and we were constantly stopping to take photos the whole way up. So about half an hour later, many photo stops, "I thought I was fitter than this" stops, and a bucket load of sweat, we made it to the old church that we've been seeing in the middle of the rock face every night. Yay we're a third of the way there!
The views from here were breathtaking, looking back out over the bay and all the mountains surrounding it, with the towns nestled with their little red roofs into the side of the mountains.
While we had waited for the skies to clear for the view, we hadn't really considered just how hot it would make it! With all the climbing it well and truly felt like a summers day!
We kept on climbing and a good while later made it to the start of the battlements. Again the view from here was even more stunning than before, as we keep getting higher, it keeps getting more unbelievably gorgeous.
After a photo stop and some time to let our hearts slow down again we kept climbing and found an alternate route of insanely steep and narrow stairs up into the battlements, so of course that's where we went!
We had so much fun exploring the battlement ruins! We walked over, in, and through the ruin ramparts, climbing through stone arched windows, with wildflowers slowly taking back the environment. It was great fun to get to explore.
We were standing right on the edge of the city wall and could see out on the other side, down below us was the switchback road that we had also heard about which is great for hiking.
We climbed through a window and rejoined the main path to the top and kept climbing!
We could clearly see the top at this point and the Montenegrin flag flying high! We were almost there!
Close to the top there was an old man sitting just off to the side of the path in the shade of a tree with his esky selling cold drinks! What a great idea! What I did think about though was the fact that we were finding it hard to walk up, and here he is doing it with an esky everyday!
We continued to power on up and made it to a flat area just before the top that gave us the most incredible views over the whole bay! We could see the bay, the towns with their red roofs nestled at the base of the mountains, and the grand sweeping mountain range framing the bay. It was absolutely spectacular.
We climbed the last leg, crossed a dodgy bridge, walked through a dark dodgy crumbling room of the fortress wall, up a few more broken stairs and then were were there! We were at the top!
We did it! We made it to the top! 1350 stairs and we had made it!
The views are even more spectacular up here! We climbed around the top of the fortress wall taking in the view from all angles. It was incredible to be so far up the mountain, we were literally amongst it, no longer looking up from the bottom.
On the city side of the wall, there was the bay and the mountains surrounding it, and on the mountain side of the wall, it slopes steeply into a rocky valley. Further round there is a flatter rocky valley with green shrubs, and down there apart from a number of mountain goats is a whole series of ruins, ruins of an ancient city!
We had some fun climbing around the top of the fortress wall and taking photos.
Then it was time to climb 1350 stairs down. It was so much easier going down, and was absolutely spectacular. We were actually facing out at the bay the whole time on the way down!
I had so much fun, it might be one of my favourite things that we've done so far. It was such fun to have climbed the wall that we look at every night from our balcony!
We walked back out through the old town and via the grocery store for a few bits for dinner, and you'll never guess what I found. They still had a couple of bags of easter eggs!
We arrived back and sat out on our balcony with some nibbles, gazing over our bay and the wall we'd just climbed!
Once the sun had gone for the day, I hopped in a nice hot bath before we recreated our amazing dinner and chilled out for the evening.
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