July 22, 2012: Kotor, Montenegro

July 22, 2012: We had a few hours to just relax at the hotel before making our trip to Kotor, Montenegro. I decided to sit at the beach below our hotel. There were quite a few people sunning themselves and many playing in the water:

Beach at Hotel Splendid

I selected a lounge chair beneath an umbrella that was also being used by a Croatian woman and rested in it looking at the swimmers and activities on the shore. After a few minutes, the woman in her broken English said "I need that chair." Seeing that it was the only one that was shaded, I replied that if her friend should return, that I would gladly give up the chair for her friend to which she replied "I'm alone," and looked at me to leave. I feigned ignorance and remained in the chair since it was clear that I was not trying to bother her in any way, and of course if anyone were to join her, I would gladly leave it for him/her. The incident reminded me of my first journey to Yugoslavia back in 1973 when I went to Belgrade and found the people (in particular the women) quite disdainful of me and figured that it was because I look like a Serb which are at odds with the Slavs, but nevertheless felt less than welcome. I remained in the ounge chair another ten minutes before Ruth and I had to go downtown to meet our driver who would take us to Kotor-- quite a complex trip as you will see...

Before leaving the US, I had arranged for our hotel in Kotor, Montenegro to drive us from Dubrovnic straight to our hotel in Kotor. After several phone calls between the hotel staff in Kotor and our hotel in Dubrovnic, the logistics were established (We were in Old Town when these calls were made so we only heard about the arrangements from messages left for us) -- we were to meet the auto at the main gate of Old Town Dubrovnic. This meant we had to carry all of our luggage on the bus and then find a place out of the sun to wait for the car to pick us up. All went well at first -- we took the bus and found a shady spot in a pizzeria where we had a cold drink and could see all the cars driving by the round about where all traffic had to pass. We were told to look for a Mercedes Benz van so we were on the look out for a car to arrive at 2:00, the time we had agreed to be there. Of course we arrived early and I wasn't particularly concerned at first. However, at 2:40 p.m. I decided that perhaps I should do a bit of checking. The lady at the pizzeria was quite accommodating and used her phone to call our hotel in Dubrovnic just in case someone had tried to call us about a change in time. The people at the hotel appeared to be quite unhelpful, telling her that now that we had left, they weren't too concerned about our driving arrangements. We were about to try to call Montenegro, but the lady's phone could only make local calls, so that wasn't an option. Finally I asked her to call Hotel Splendid again so that I could talk with the hotel staff. When I talked with them, they informed me that the driver from Kotor had arrived a few minutes beforehand and since they couldn't find us at the gate, they had come to the hotel to look for us and the staff at the hotel told him that we had left. However, they did have the cell phone number of someone who knew the driver's phone number and would call him to call our driver to let him know where to find us. What I learned later was that our driver had gone to the wrong gate of Old Town (not the main gate where we were) and had asked a Croatian for advice and learned about the main gate where he went next. Fortunately our driver had exchanged cell phone numbers with this Croatian before he went to the main gate but our driver couldn't locate us and drove to Hotel Splendid to look for us and then left when we weren't there. So, after I had talked with Hotel Splendid staff, they called the Croatian who then called our driver who finally found us! What a complicated way to begin our journey to Montenegro!

The trip to Montenegro took around three hours and our driver wasted no time speeding on his way. The trip reminded me of my taxi ride from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Phnom Phen last year when I thought I was going to die. This driver must have gone to the same driving school because he constantly weaved in and out of traffic and followed the car in front of us leaving about a foot of space going at fast speeds. Finally, after two and a half hours of this driving, a policeman stopped him and gave him a ticket (I think -- I couldn't tell what the two of them were discussing) and from then on the driving became a bit better.

We finally arrived at Kotor, a jewel of a walled city nestled below a high cliff with breathtaking views of the coast. Upon arrival, we walked inside the wall to our hotel, a former palace that was converted to a hotel. (Note that the "palaces" of Kotor are not the kind one pictures like in Germany or England, but rather they are very old stone buildings that are stately but far simpler than those in other European countries.) Our room consisted of a sitting room plus a bedroom:

Sitting room Villa Duomo Hotel

Villa Duomo Hotel bedroom

We were delighted with our accommodations and the hotel staff who were quite nervous about us since they had heard from our driver that he did not find us. We settled in and went out to find a place for dinner.

We then roamed about the walled city:

view looking up out of the walled city

Square of Arms (Trg od Orzja) Bell Tower

Cathedral of St. Tryphon (Katedrala Sv. Tripuna)

Walled city with fort on top of mountain in distance

Bell Tower

St. Nicholas Church (Crkva Sv. Nikola)

Inside St. Nicholas Church

Inside St. Nicholas Church

 

As you can see, Kotor is an enchanting city and I looked forward to the next day's adventure -- climbing to the top of the mountain behind the city. I was told that the climb was easy -- only 20 minutes to the church and another 20 minutes to the top where the fort was. You'll see how "easy" that was when I report on it in tomorrow's blog entry...