Day Trip to Montenegro

Friday, July 6, 2018

We were feeling pretty good about what we had covered in Croatia thus far, and we knew that Dubrovnik was really close to the border. Gavin had a very strong hankering to add another country to our list of places traveled, and was pushing very hard for us to take a day trip to Montenegro. Though Ewan and I wouldn't have minded another chill day by the pool, we agreed to go and Gavin arranged to have a rental car brought to the hotel at 8:00 and we got an early start. 

We headed south, originally aiming to take a more backroads route with a smaller, quieter border crossing, but we got somewhat lost and headed back to the main road, which meant we had to go through the main border crossing, and ensuing long lines. The border was only 40 minutes or so from Dubrovnik, but it took us 30-45 minutes to get through the long lines. Soon after crossing, we found a little cafe where we made a pit stop and caffeinated ourselves, before heading to the Bay of Kotor. 

Montenegro definitely felt poorer and not as polished as Croatia, but the tourist economy appeared to be thriving in this gorgeous area. The bay is quite large, and dramatically beautiful. The bay is a fjord, extremely picturesque, with rugged gray and green mountains, diving steeply down into the sparkling blue water.

We planned to visit the town of Perast, which has been there since medieval times. We wanted to see the little island in the bay that had a wonderful story. Supposedly, a fisherman had a vision of the Virgin Mary on a rock in the bay and found an icon there. The fisherman and the people began to drop rocks in the area, and over hundreds of subsequent years, the people continued to drop rocks in that spot until they created an artificial island, on top of which they built the tiny Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rocks. 

It was a five minute boat trip to get to the tiny island, and we sprung for the private tour that took us around the other little island (not open to the public) where a little monastery stood. We also had quite nice views of the medieval town of Perast and the surrounding mountains.

The inside of the church was small, but beautiful. There was an elaborate altar, and on the walls of the church hung silver plaques that had been donated to the church as tokens of appreciation for particular miracles granted.

After our boat ride and visit to the church, we continued our drive around the edge of the bay to seek out a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves called Stari Mlini. The setting was serene and beautiful, set along a creek with a couple of water wheels, however the food was underwhelming, and the service was haughty and cold--a stark contrast to all of the friendly Croatian waiters that we had encountered previously. The best part about our meal was a visit from a friendly tabby cat who jumped up on the seat between Ewan and Gavin and accepted their affections with a hearty purr motor and a stream of drool that soaked into Gavin's shorts.

After lunch, we continued our drive around the southern part of the bay, and rather than backtrack, we took a shortcut by taking a ferry across the narrow strait and headed back to Croatia. At this point we had figured out where the smaller border crossing was, and we found the backroad to take us there. We were the ONLY car there heading back into Croatia, and despite the lack of urgency in the border control agent's movements as he stamped our passports, we still made it through lickety-split compared to our crossing into Montenegro.

We made it back to our hotel in good time. Ewan and I chose to rest for a couple of hours, and Gavin took advantage of having the rental car so he could drive up to a lookout point above Dubrovnik for more photo ops. After he returned, we walked to dinner at a restaurant up the beach from our hotel for one final Croatian meal by the sea.