Montenegro - September 2024

06:44
I am once again, would you believe, in Brewdog at Gatwick North terminal. Comfortably the earliest I’ve had to be here this year. Vicki and I are off to Kotor, in Montenegro, along with 6 of our dearest friends. There’s a small cock-up when the cab doesn’t arrive. Mindful that I’ve been the taxi mistake maker in the past, I check and recheck my confirmation email, before calling the cab company. Nope - it’s their snafu. Somewhere along the way, they’ve got a couple of bookings confused, and they’re expecting to pick us up on Monday, to fly to New York. Really not what you want to hear for a 05:00 cab after a 04:15 alarm… Thankfully, they have a driver on standby, who gets over to us in 10 minutes, and we’re still at Gatwick in decent time.

Vicki, bless her, has had a crazy week at work. Couple of weeks in fact. When I went to bed last night, I had an inkling she might not get finished until v late, and my inkling is confirmed. She’s not managed to get to bed - but is in awesome spirits, ready to go etc etc. She does, however, doze for the entirety of the cab ride to Gatwick. I suspect today will be a day of many en-route naps.

In the check-in area, we rejoice to see a gin still that’s been christened ‘Judith.’ We’re quickly through bag drop and security. In a first of its kind, neither of us is pulled over for additional security checks.

And so it is, that I find myself in the North Terminal Brewdog, for maybe the 6th time this year. They don’t have a loyalty scheme, but if they did…

Our group is arriving in stages, and I suspect we’ll meet at the departure gate. The nucleus of this group is a gang we’ve travelled with a bunch of times before, but not for quite a few years. I think 2015 or 2016 would have been the last time. We exist very easily together, so am expecting a chilled out week of not very much. We’re staying in a waterfront villa on Kotor Bay, in a little village called Dobrota, about 5km North of Kotor Old Town. I’m unsure, at this point, how active we’ll be - there are tons of opportunities for adventuring, but most require car-hire. The weather may well have a role to play in helping us decide. The forecast is, let’s not be coy, shit. Heavy rain, thunderstorms. We’re all hopeful that the storms will be intermittent and fleeting. Fingers crossed, touch wood etc etc.

Last time I flew out of North Terminal was peak, PEAK Summer holiday season. The airport’s a very much more relaxed affair this morning, most schools having already started again for the Winter term. There are a few families getting away, but the vast majority are groups of adults headed off on their travels. There’s a slightly subdued atmosphere.

19:30
The flight is blissfully brief. We’re around an hour late taking off, due to some mist and fog at Gatwick generally slowing everything down, and land into Dubrovnik about 45 minutes behind schedule. Quickly enough, we’re squashed into our 8 seater taxi for the journey South to Dobrota. There’s an airport at Tivat, about 45 minutes away from our villa, but flights there were much more limited, and far more expensive, so we’ve flown into Croatia, and will drive down into Montenegro. It’s around 90 minutes to drive, but the variable is how long the border crossing will take. Whilst Montenegro uses the Euro for its currency, it’s not (yet) part of the European Union, so there’s a hard border between the two. I suspect leaving the EU to get into Montenegro is going to be a lot quicker/easier than getting back into the EU when we head home.

The drive down is really something. The surrounding scenery is just beautiful. We’re surrounded by mountains, and spend most of the journey hugging the shores of lakes and fjords. I wasn’t prepared for how close the mountains are to where we’re staying. We spend the last 50 minutes driving round the coastline of the Bay of Kotor, which looks like a lake, but is actually an inland bay, joined to the sea about 15km to the North West of us. We’re reminded of the Italian lakes, except prettier, more rustic.

There’s some small confusion as we try to figure out which villa is actually ours, but ultimately manage to locate the right property. It’s a beautiful building. A maze of staircases, rooms, and terraces. It’s bewitchingly charming. The views across the bay are simply staggering. We’re all a bit warm and peckish, so head out to a local restaurant for refreshment. The local beer is Niksicko, and is a pleasant little drop. Most critically, it’s cold. Super cold. We have a sharing platter of ham and cheeses, and all is well with the world.

23:30
For ease, we head back to the same place for dinner. We’ll do some more exploring tomorrow. Our dinner is lovely. Simple, grilled dishes in the main - and I have a cuttlefish risotto, a dish I was introduced to in Croatia, and which appears to be a specialty of this section of the Adriatic coast. Our bill is a slightly scary €450 for 8 of us. This feels more than a little steep. Interrogating the bill, it transpires that broadly half of that has gone on 4 bottles of wine - not an insane amount for us to have got through, but a whacking chunk of change. We resolve to be a bit more mindful of wine options when we’re out and about.

Whiskas proposes a digestif/nightcap, and this feels like a brilliant idea. We head to a little café only steps from our villa, and try Slivja. This is part of the Slivovitz family, so common across Eastern Europe, and particularly the Balkans. It’s a brandy made from damsons or plums. I find myself quite liking it, though it’s not to everyone’s tastes. The café has an entire section of their menu for ‘homemade’ spirits. Nicci insists that we try them all over the course of the week, and that’s the second brilliant idea in the past 30 minutes.

Vicks and I are both flagging. She’s managed about 90 minutes of sleep through the day, but is ready for an extended doze.Read more