| Well how do you reckon, last night we sat on Wrighteau, the computer is back in favour as I managed to get into News talk ZB and Paul Homes and some good old New Zealand talk back radio, as I Skyped home and corresponded with a sister. Technology when it works is great. This morning we woke up to Larry. All this as we sit in this tiny little place called Kotor in Montenegro. It has been a beautiful little visit here, the town is lovely and when I discovered I could communicate a bit still it all helped. Yesterday we had a bit of a catch up, and discovered a lovely place to eat. Then I discovered some Vranac red wine at the supermarket for 2.50 Euro for 1 litre, so this caused some excitement. We just had a quiet night in, but it turned out to be late when I discovered that the restaurant where we ate gave me a pin number to use the internet on the boat. Today we woke with great gusto and walked up to the Castle ruins, or Fortress I guess, not sure how far up, but I would guess about 400 metres up, we started about 8.30 so were two of a small few on the track at that time, a real bonus. The views were absolutely outstanding, and far too many photo opportunities, the poor little shutter button is nearly dead from over exertion. We have found it very hard to find information of any outings to do, and when we finally found a sort of tour operator we found that two of the tours they offered don’t actually leave from here afterall. So we decided to take ourselves on an outing, just catch a bus and head inland to see what it’s like. So after our walk up the hill we walked around to the bus station, where the excursion nearly fell at the first hurdle, what sort of an excursion doesn’t leave the first bus station, the drivers, staff and everyone were quite unhelpful, rude and not made any easier with such a language barrier. They have a long way to go in this country to learn how to encourage tourists we feel. Eventually just before we canned it all, the bus rolled in and away we went. The first part of the trip showed quite a bit of brick and building material construction yards. The country side is extremely scruffy and unattractive. After going through Budvah we climbed high into the mountains, the next hour we climbed in and around these rocky and shrub covered hills, it was certainly quite dramatic. We went to Podgovica, about the ugliest city we have driven through, we had hoped to find the Juli 13 winery, but we were quite convinced this was out of the question, so we sat and had a bus station lunch of lamb chops and goulash, and boarded the bus back to Kotor. This was a fairly hair raising event in itself, and reassured us that we made the right decision in not renting a car here. The bus driver was a serious rally driver, and I don't have a direct line to him upstairs there, but I did chance my luck and pleaded that the brakes would stay in tact as we whirled down the mountain side and around tight corners. He certainly did make good time, and it was a relief to get back to Wrighteau. So it has been quite a day. We think it is time to move on, onto Bar further south, where we will have a couple of days and then check out of the country from there. |
