Montenegro, what does it conjure up in your mind? If you said mountains, and lots of them, you’d be right! Traditionally a land locked nation, Montenegro only recently gained a coast line through the Bay of Kotor.
Anya and I drove up that crazy set of mountains again to head to the Mausoleum of Petar II Petrovic-Njegos. A Prince/Bishop of Montenegro, he was a poet and philosopher whose works are widely considered some of the most important in Montenegrin and Serbian literature.
He was buried on the second tallest mountain, with the view that there was as room for someone to be better than him…. That mountain now has all the telecommunications towers…. So…. He was a little bit right and a little bit wrong….!
We then drove down to the old capital Cetinje, to check out Petar’s Palace, as well as other palaces. Just as in Croatia, descending on the other side of the mountains reveals a whole new landscape and architecture. More grasslands, forests etc. more farmers selling honey, cheese and prosciutto! The one thing of note regarding the two palaces we visited, they were very modest. I’m sure in comparison to local living conditions at the time, they were out of proportion and ostentatious. But I’m comparison to their Russian, German, English, Spanish etc cousins, they must have seemed quite poor. However, still of good stock, as they were married into all the largest royal families.
We looped our way back home to pick up Ljosha through a tiny village and picked up some local wine, cheese and prosciutto for snacking. Again a well earned swim was in order when we got home!
After cooling down, we hopped in the car to head to Tivat (around the bay further from Anya’s village) to get Ljosha a much asked for ice cream and to check out Anya’s yacht club. Docked in the yacht club was The Black Pearl one of the worlds largest sailing yachts. It’s sails are apparently solar panels! Either way, it looked very impressive in the dock! Out behind the yacht club was a relic of the past…..!
Tomorrow I head back to Croatia, to catch my flight to Singapore via Frankfurt. I’ve been warned that the Croatian/Montenegrin border can take up to 6 hours to cross…. So it could be a fun day!
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