Tag Archive | Bay of Kotor

Wrapping Up an Exciting Eastern European Tour–From Budva to Dubrovnik to London

Oct5

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Kotor-Dubrovnik-London

We arrived finally at the last day of our travels and although both of us had a terrific time, we were both suffering from sightseeing fatigue and were ready to call it a day. Furthermore, Montenegro appeared like something of an anti-climax to us after the glories of Split and Dubrovnik—so we were not too unhappy to be returning to London.

When I had checked, the previous day, at the bus station to confirm that our tickets from Budva to Dubrovnik would leave at 2. 30 pm, I had a slight shock. There was no bus at 2. 30 and, in fact, our tickets were issued for the 9.30 am bus. Well, what a good thing I had checked! Overall, we found the folks manning public services in Montenegro unhelpful and very surly. The language was an issue and since they did not speak it too well, we all struggled to make ourselves understood. So, in a way, we were glad that our bus was leaving at 9. 30, as this mean that we had a good several hours to spend in Dubrovnik, our favorite place, and would be ending our trip on a high note.

Accordingly, we washed, showered, dressed, repacked and came down to the Reception of the Hotel Kangaroo with our bags and went straight to the Restaurant for our buffet breakfast. We basically stocked up well on proteins to keep us going for several hours and, once again, packed a ham and cheese sandwich with us to eat for lunch. Saying bye to the Receptionist and returning our keys, we trudged along to the Bus Station where we arrived at 9.00 am for our 9.30 am bus which left right on schedule. The bus was empty but picked up passengers in Kotor. The three hour bus ride was uneventful and comfortable and after Kotor, the Bay was, of course, stunningly beautiful to peruse from our window and the highlight really of our stay in Montenegro.

Arrival and Final Strolls in Dubrovnik:

On arrival in Dubrovnik at about 12. 30, we decided to spend the last few hours of our time in Croatia in the city we had really grown to love. So we stashed our bags in the Left Luggage locker and took a local bus to the Old Town—once again scrapping together the few kuna we were still carrying with us.

Once in the Old Town, we felt like veterans as we recalled how confused we had been on first arriving there in the dark, a few days previously. This time round, we knew exactly where to go and what to do. We would stroll around, pop into a couple of churches, shoot the breeze in the big open-air squares and then sit by the waterside and contemplate the sheer beauty of this lovely antiquated settlement. And that was exactly what we did. We purchased the last of our souvenirs, used up our kunas by ordering a meal and gelato at a waterfront restaurant before we departed from the city and then retraced our steps back to the bus station to take the 5.30 pm shuttle to the airport which was about 45 minutes away. We reached the airport at about 7.00 pm which was well in time to check in for our Easyjet flight back to London’s Luton airport which was to depart at 10.05 pm. All the time we kept saying how lucky we were that we had the bonus day in Dubrovnik—an unexpected delight.

Departure for London:

It was late and we were tired but with a lot of resting at the airport, we were able to survive the wait for our flight. It was a short flight of just over two hours and we arrived at Luton at about midnight. We had made shuttle bookings on the National Express bus service to get us back to Victoria, where we reached at 1.00 am and about 1. 22 am, along came the 44 bus that took us to Battersea High Street where my friend Roz had concealed her key for us in a hiding place so that we could let ourselves inside. It was then almost 2. 45 and we were ready to crash. Luckily, she had two guest rooms ready so that we had a room each and we really did appreciate that little luxury as we lay down to sleep.

Conclusion:

On the morrow, we would meet Roz who would join us for breakfast and meet Chriselle for the first time…but for the moment, I fell asleep looking back upon an incredible trip with my daughter with whom I do not often get the chance to spend such prolonged periods of quality time. It was a trip we would both savor for a very long time to come and always appreciate. It had introduced us to some amazingly stunning parts of the world and offered a lot of opportunities to sample unique and interesting food and to undertake a plethora of experiences that were different and delightful such as trekking along a river surrounded by mountains, riding a train through subterranean caves filled with strange rock formations, singing under the stars to the accompaniment of a guitarist, boating to an island in the middle of a lake, ringing a Wishing Bell in a spectacular church, going up in a funicular train to a castle at the top of a mountain, scaling the walls of an ancient Town, buying interesting souvenirs in shops and flea markets, interacting with local people in public transport that was usually efficient, crossing international borders several times to have our documents scrutinized, and just gabbing for hours over steaming tea while rain drummed down upon the roof of a cafe. Yes, truly, these are the images that would remain fixed in my mind and which I would call upon often as I tried to process, over the next few weeks, the distinctive experiences we had accumulated on our travels.

Thanks so much for following this travelogue with me. I hope you have enjoyed being an armchair traveler. I have certainly enjoyed having you by my side, if only in spirit.

Until tomorrow, cheerio…

Dipping into the Adriatic Coast in Montenegro–Coursing Through Kotor, Perast and Budva

Oct5

Monday, October 3, 2016:

Kotor-Perast-Budva (Along the Adriatic Coast)

Easily the best thing about our Hotel Kangaroo in Budva was its magnificent buffet breakfast that offered several choices including many vegetarian options for Chriselle. We washed, showered, dressed and went down to eat at about 8.00 am and had a feast. We even carried a sandwich for lunch made with thick slices of bread and the huge variety of cold cuts and cheese they offered.

Our day was devoted to discovering the more interesting parts of the gorgeous Bay of Kotor that appears like the petals of a flower whose tips jut out into the Adriatic Sea. This meant walking to the Bus station from where we boarded a bus to Kotor—the town that is usually a tourist’s base. It is not a very interesting drive as it goes through the interior—not along the water’s edge. Still, it is a short drive and an in about 20 minutes, we were there.

Discovering Kotor:

From the bus station, you walk about ten minutes to get to the entrance to the huge fortress at Kotor whose walls snake up a mountain like the Great Wall of China. It almost disappears into the mountain side as the walls and the mountain are the same grey. Once you enter the fortress, you are lost, once again, in the feeling of an Old Town. These pockets, common it seems, to all settlements along the Adrtiatic coast, were built centuries ago to offer communal living to the inhabitants. Houses and buildings sit cheek by jowl, there is always a church, a large square in front of it (today, filled with cafes and restaurants, banks or post offices) and a maze of narrow lanes across which houses seem to reach out and kiss one another. We walked through Kotor’s Old Town, pausing often to buy our souvenirs—T-shirts, post-cards, magnets, little gifts for friends, to change money at a bank and to get some euros. We took time to just sit down and enjoy people-watching. The architecture is always fascinating and offers many photo opportunities.

Kotor is also a modern town with the abundant shops that cater exclusively to cruise ship passengers for all the places we visited on this trip (Split, Dubrovnik, Kotor) are part of a very popular route in the Adriatic region. These luxury stores with over-priced designer goods are everywhere and a great way to pass time—although, to be honest, I have rarely seen anyone actually buy anything. We decided to bypass this part of Kotor altogether and head instead to Perast which was described in my Lonely Planet guidebook as a small chunk of Venice that seems to have floated into the Adriatic Sea and attached itself to the Bay of Kotor. Well…who would not want to stroll through a mini-Venice, right? Chriselle was not too enthusiastic. She definitely showed signs, by this stage, of sightseeing fatigue. But I managed to persuade her—we were so close, why not just cover it too?

Perusing Perast:

We were, by this stage, also counting our euros—we had too few and did not want to exchange too much more. Somehow we scraped together the bus fare and boarded one to Perast—which took us about 15 minutes to get there past lovely scenery.

Indeed, Perast did remind us a little bit of Venice with its palazzos, its spire of a church that is visible from afar, its cobbled streets. But sadly, just as we made ourselves comfortable by the water’s edge, with our sandwich lunch, along came a few fat raindrops to ruin our picnic. Spying the awning of a little souvenir shop nearby, we fled under it and Chriselle ended up buying a bottle of lemonade from there—with a delicious bitter lemon flavor that we both enjoyed. We sat there for a long while but our visit to Perast was thoroughly ruined by the rain as there was really nothing much to do in the town.

Its biggest attraction is a boat ride to the two islands that sit in the Adriatic Sea not too far from the town. One of them is a natural island (but that one is closed to the public and boats merely skirt around it); the other is a man-made island that is still a work in progress. On it stands the lovely domed Church of Our Lady of the Rocks which is quite spectacular inside. We chose, however, not to go there as we had already done one boat ride to the island on Lake Bled where a similar church exists. Also, we were short of money and there were no banks or money exchange places in Perast! The church in the main town square was closed—so we could not enter it—although there was an old crone waiting in the campanile tower to take money from anyone wishing to climb up for great views of the Bay. Needless to say, we were quite wiped out from our ten days of sightseeing to want to attempt that—plus, we had no money!

Between the two of us, we just managed to scrape the few euros we needed to get back on the bus to Kotor—this time the scenery was ruined by rain and windows that kept fogging up and obscuring the view. And once at Kotor, we wasted no time, but hopped into a bus that took us back to Budva. We still had to explore Budva’s Old Town as rain had ruined that excursion for us, the previous evening. So about an hour later, we were back in Budva.

Exploring Budva’s Old Town:    

Thankfully, and by some miracle, the rain had not reached as far south of the Bay as Budva. So, as soon as we got to the bus station, we walked directly towards Old Town, past all the flashy new skyscrapers and rather gaudy structures as we knew the lie of the land pretty well by this point.

Budva’s Old Town had a lot to offer: the usual suspects, of course, churches, plazas, shops, bars, cafes, but these were actually quite charming because each place and its Old Town has a slightly different character. Here, there was a lovely Russian Orthodox Church that was very pretty and reminiscent (though on a much smaller scale) of the ones we had seen in St. Petersburg in Russia.  We contemplated sitting at a café with a coffee and dessert but prices were very high. Instead, we sat at the water’s edge on a rampart of the fort and watched people and their dogs and felt happy and contented that our lovely holiday was ending in this place.

Budva’s tourist literature depicts a lovely sculpture of a ballerina and since we had not yet caught sight of her, we went out in search of it. It meant a bit of a walk around the fort and Old Town walls, but then there she was—on the rocks—sort of like The Little Mermaid that sits in the harbor at Copenhagen. People scrambled across the rocks to take pictures with her (which made it hard for the rest of us to get our shots!) but in the end, after some ill-natured bantering with them, we got our pictures and left.

It was time to walk back to our hotel before darkness fell over the city. Through the garden we went, past the fountain that changes lights and colors and on to our hotel where we sat at the restaurant and ordered dinner. It was delicious and satisfying—Chriselle had been craving the grilled prawns (large ones, well marinated and charred) and I had some meat (although I cannot now remember what I ate). When we’d had our fill, we left and took the elevator up to our room where we organized ourselves for our departure, the next day, to Dubrovnik. It was not long before we switched the light off and fell asleep.

Until tomorrow, cheerio…

Departing from Dubrovnik in Croatia and Arriving in Budva, Montenegro

Oct5

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Dubrovnik, Croatia-Budva, Montenegro:

Chriselle and I woke up excited because soon we would be on the road again. However, for the start of the day, we’d be in Dubrovnik and since it was a Sunday and we had not yet managed to get inside the Church of St. Blaise, it made sense to go for Mass there.

We washed, showered, dressed and packed our bags and kept them ready for our departure and then we set out to pay a visit at the church—not sure if we would get a Mass as the church did not have a website and I was not able to confirm timings. To our good luck, the church was open when we got there at about 7. 45 am and we soon discovered, by the numbers of people who kept trooping in, that Mass was at 8.00 am. Needless to say, we attended Mass and received Communion and then left quickly. The church is gorgeous—it is again decorated in the Baroque vein with lavish gilding at the altar and beautiful marble cherubs and saints scattered all around. We also found deep Catholic devotion in Croatia and a congregation of a wide age range.

Outside, vendors were getting their goodies ready for new buyers—we later discovered that the open-air market was part of a two-day festival that occurs once a year. We were lucky to have caught it. Chriselle bought a jar of preserved cherries which she absolutely adored. We also returned to the same bakery to buy ourselves something for breakfast—croissants and ham and cheese twists with coffee—and we sat at a square that was just coming to life, we chatted with other tourists who had just arrived in Dubrovnik and were clearly enchanted by it.

With our breakfast eaten, we took a couple of last strolls around the place and then return to our hotel to pick up our bags. We then made our way to the bus stop from where we caught the 1A bus that took us to the Main Bus Station.

Off to Montenegro:

Our bus to Montenegro left promptly at 11.00 am. We were scheduled to arrive in Budva at 2.00 pm. We did go through another border check-point when our passports were checked and stamped and as we entered Montenegro, we found ourselves growing more and more charmed by the scenery. Leaving Dubrovnik was also wonderful as it offered us exciting views of Old Town from a height as it receded from us.

Our arrival in Budva brought us to the main Bus station past the many twists and turns that make up the gorgeous Bay of Kotor. The drive snakes around the water’s edge for a good couple of hours offering stunning scenery that combines water, mountains, small red roofed hamlets and many luxury hotels and spas that have been completely taken over by Russian tourists. We passed by the main town of Kotor and other much smaller settlements that hug the water’s edge and finally arrived at Budva.

Arrival and Check-in at Budva:

In Budva, I had made reservations at Hotel Kangaroo which Lonely Planet had recommended warmly. Its name derives from the fact that it is run by an Australian couple. Asking for directions at the bus-station, we managed to find our way to the hotel after about a 20 minute walk—which was not very pleasant given that we had baggage with us. Still, once we were in our hotel, it reminded us much of Goa—with its shack-like appearance and its lush greenery. No sooner did we stash our bags in our very spacious ensuite room than we realized how hungry we were—luckily, our hotel had a very large restaurant attached to it and it was there that we ate our first meal in Montenegro. I ordered the Beef Goulash which turned out to be a very large and hearty helping of an Indian–style beef curry served with a bit of mashed potato. Chriselle chose to have the grilled fish with chips—potato fries. This turned out to be much too large a helping for her—but the food was tasty and very reasonably priced.

Our first impressions of Budva were that it reminded us a lot of suburban Bombay. It is a very modern city with the kind of urban sprawl that is not very attractive despite the fact that new high rise buildings are apparently being constructed for clients with money—more Russians, perhaps? After the charming, old-world, medieval ambience of Dubrovnik, we were a tad disappointed, but we hoped we’d find antiquity in Old Town.

Going out to Discover Budva:

Having sustained ourselves well for the evening ahead, we decided to go out in search of Old Town which was a good 20 minute walk from our hotel. We took a map and directions from our hotel receptionist and as we began to cross a large garden towards the waterfront, we felt the first fat drops on our faces. Soon the drizzle became a steady downpour and we had to take shelter in a restaurant as neither one of us had an umbrella. After a while it seemed to clear up and we raced towards the main walls of Old Town which were just a few meters in front of us.

Caught in a Massive Downpour:

Well, all we managed to do was get into the town walls. Within a few steps, the rain re-started and we had no alternative but to seek shelter again. This time we sat in a restaurant and ordered cups of tea which felt really good as we were cold and quite miserable at being caught in the rain. However, we also reminded ourselves that this was the very first time we had to deal with rain on our entire trip—indeed we had been hugely fortunate with the weather—so we could hardly grumble.

The rain drummed on and on. The two of us looked at it as a great time to just sit and catch up with every aspect of our lives. But for the two of us, the restaurant was empty and we had the wait staff pouring attention upon us. It was not just the rain but deafening claps of thunder that alarmed us and streaks of lightning that shot across the sky. We talked about our past, about our future, about friends and family members that we now see so rarely, etc. It really was a great way to bond and get in touch with all the happenings in our lives. About two hours later, after Chriselle felt the need to order a bit of dinner (I was still too full after our late lunch), we nibbled at a dessert that she ordered and after darkness had fallen over the city and the rain had thoroughly drenched everything, we found our way back to our hotel. In the end, we did not see anything of Old Town—but tomorrow was another day!

There was little else to do but a spot of reading before we got to bed as the TV in our room did not play anything in English. By 9.30 pm, we were switching off the light, wishing each other a good night and hoping for better weather tomorrow.

Until tomorrow, cheerio…