Day 8 - From there, to here

14:00
The cleaners are arriving at 10:00. We’ve negotiated with Maria that we can hang out in the villa until 12:00, when our cab will arrive to take us back to Croatia, and towards Dubrovnik Airport. We’re up and busy a little after 08:00, and all pretty much packed up by 10:00.

I’m taking most of a bottle of tequila home with us - the one that was gifted to us by the villa owner’s son as an apology for the flooding issues. Now, I don’t do well with tequila. A horrific incident when I was 15 involving a horrendously cheap and nasty white tequila, which means that even the smell of it turns my stomach. Back in 2018, I tested whether this was still the case, while Vicks and I were in Antigua, and discovered that yes - yes, it is very much still the case. This bottle though is an aged Reposado tequila. I tried some a couple of days ago, and - I actually quite like it. It’s smoky, and has spicy notes. I’m still not sure I’d wanna smash down shots of it, but as a sipped drink, it’s closer to a decent whisky than the shitshow of a white tequila that’s haunted me for the past 30 years.

We congregate downstairs at 10:00 to let the cleaners crack on with their work. There’s still a fair amount of booze that we’ve not finished. Some tuck into a glass of rosé, others have a beer. I dive into a spiced rum and OJ, and sit by the pool, contentedly reading my book.

The cab arrives just before 12:00, and is, in fact, a small coach. No bad thing, as we were pretty squashed in during the journey down. It transpires that we’re going to do some kind of a swap at the border. Croatian drivers aren’t allowed to drive into Montenegro to pick up passengers to take them back to Croatia. Quite why the Montenegrin driver can’t take us all the way to Cavtat, I’m not sure. The drive around the bay is spectacular. It’s just such a stunning vista. It’s Saturday, and traffic is quite clunky, particularly through the town of Herceg Novi, near the border. About 20 minutes from the border crossing we used on the way out of Croatia, our driver turns off the main road, and starts heading up the side of a mountain. We all look a little non-plussed. Turns out there are several different border crossings in this part of the world, and he’s brought us to one that he expects to be quieter and quicker. Once we’ve left Montenegro, and are in no-mans land before entering Croatia, and the European Union, we swap vehicles. This all feels quite shady, though it’s anything but. As we approach the Croatian / EU border, our driver explains a little more about this border crossing, and that it’s a hotspot for typically Albanians to smuggle drugs into the EU. It’s quite small, and doesn’t have a sniffer dog team. He goes not to tell us that it’s possible (!) to transport 10 kilos of coke through this border without any issues. Bit worrying that he’s so confident about this. There’s a short queue to cross the border, and the car in front of us has Albanian licence tags. After a fairly lengthy dialogue with the border guard, the car is turned back. Happily, our transit is a more straightforward affair, and we’re quickly on our way to Cavtat…

21:00
Cavtat’s beautiful. A small, harbour town on the coast of the Adriatic. We stop for a well deserved lunch. We decided not to cook anything this morning at the villa, and so there’s some significant hunger amongst our group. I have a spectacular octopus carpaccio, followed by Saltimbocca - a thin veal steak topped with sage and prosciutto. Both are very tasty. Shenda has some of the best calamari I can remember having in a VERY long time…

After lunch, the girls declare shopping, and the gents repair to a nearby bar. The sun is intermittently shining and warm, but is regularly shrouded in cloud, which leaves us feeling a touch chilly. There’s a stiffish breeze as well…

There’s a spectacular looking super yacht in the harbour. c. 50m long, and sleeping 12 in 6 en-suite bedrooms, we briefly consider liberating it for a week’s cruise around the Med. The weekly hire for this vessel transpires to be €290,000, which is just a touch out of our price range.

At 18:00, we jump in our cab to the airport. Dubrovnik Airport is pretty small, and not brilliantly equipped. We’re dejected to find our flight is delayed by around 45 minutes. It’s been a long day already, and we all just want to be at home. Shenda, Simon, Vicki and I put down anchors at a table in a small café in the departure lounge. They serve a decent white wine in a small bottle, several of which I plough through. We’re keeping our eye on the inbound flight. No way are we going through passport control and into the non-Schengen departure lounge until it’s landed…

23:55
We land around 40 minutes late - not the worst outcome… We’re very quickly off the plane, and through passport control. Not a lot of folks in the airport this late in the day. We say goodbye to Rach and Whisk, who have hand luggage and are straight into a cab to take them back to Charlwood. Our bags turn up pretty quickly, and we bid adieu to Si, Shenda, Eddie and Nicci. It’s been a great group to travel with, and I can’t imagine it’ll be that long until we’re planning our next trip together.

It’s pretty bloody fresh outside. I think the temperature’s down at about 10C. As soon as we’re into our cab, Vicki’s out like a light, bless her…Read more