9/14: Hiking in Kotor & On the Road to Cetinje

While Steven was out hiking the nearby mountain above Kotor, I stayed in our tiny room typing up notes from some of our travels. Since the wifi was so powerful, I was able to load photos into a number of future posts, drink tea and listen to CNN with half an ear all at the same time. Nothing like multitasking, huh!

As Steven had joked, it was also 'that time of the month' when I needed to respond to a flurry of emails and write comments on all the committee reports for our homeowners’ association’s monthly newsletter. I am on the HOA Board, co-chair of the Parks Committee and assist with editing the newsletter so I keep very involved even from half a world away.

This had been the first time in ages we had any access to English language news and, as a news junkie, I had felt bereft with no access to news from home. It was even really good to get updates on how Hillary and The Donald were duking it out on the election front. Mindy: I know you wrote you’re getting heartily sick of all the election coverage but I drank it up knowing we likely wouldn’t have any more updates for awhile.

Steven's photos of his 1200 meter (about 3,600 feet!) ascent up to the fortifications way above Kotor.

He took this photo for me as I am always picking up trash whenever we walk or hike. How sad so much trash was left in such glorious surroundings to be picked up by someone else.

Seeing these photos made me realize I was glad that, for once, I had not accompanied Steven on his hike up the 1350 steps to the summit!

But, what an incredible sense of achievement he must have had seeing Kotor Bay laid out in front of him at the top.

You can see the fortress that he climbed to way up at the top of the hill.

Once Steven got back, he told me about his invigorating hike and shared the photos he had taken. I was glad to see those and was almost as glad with the goodie bag of still warm croissants he had also returned with. We stayed on the terrace until 3 when we got a ride back to the bus station for our onward journey to Cetinje, also in Montenegro.

As a foreshadowing of the bus system in Montenegro, our bus forgot to come so we were put on another bus that made a detour and dropped us off at the originally scheduled time as the other bus. We had been concerned that we would have another hotel driver waiting for us but luckily it was the driver, who was late, not us, this time. Petar expressed no surprise that our bus hadn’t appeared and only wonder that we had arrived at the scheduled time because of the sad state of the Montenegrin bus system!

Petar said there were eight guest rooms in his home and most of his guests come from France. That's why he's trying to learn French. It was fabulous that once again we had a lovely large room, our own bathroom (albeit down the hall) and a shared kitchen in the 19th century home. What a great improvement from the studio in Kotor! 

After chatting for a while with Petar, our host, we left our bags and went in search of dinner at one of the many nearby cafes and restaurants as it was already well past 7pm. 

We could not believe how incredibly cheap all the prices were. For an easy exchange rate, one euro equals about $1.10. Notice the weight of each dish is also included. I had the stuffed chicken dish listed below.

Look at the phenomenal pizza prices!

Steven had wienerschnitzel and fries as fries seemed to be the only side available anywhere. I love fries but I am close to becoming french fried out!

Our bill came to only $13 including a decent sized glass of wine each and tax. The wine came in idividual bottles and cost all of one euro each! We slept well that night after another long day.

Posted from Skopje, Macedonia on September 23rd, 2016.