9/26 Montenegro, Brace Yourself

The day is bright, still windy and still coolish. We finish, packing and get cleaned up and prepare to hike into town for breakfast. Matilda wanted us out at 10:00am but we talked her into letting us stay until 1:00pm as the place in Kotor (it's actually just outside Kotor in a town called Muo) has a 4 pm check in time. It's only about a two hour drive. Walk, for the last time, into Old Town and have breakfast...pretty good, eggs, toast, cheese, tomatoes etc. Of course,

since we are within a mile of any type of store, the ladies decide it's time to satisfy their primal urges and go shopping. Carroll buys a few things and Shirley buys a pin for her mom's birthday and Christmas. There is also a small farmer's market on backstreet and the produce looks really tasty. So, we fight upstream and up the 133 steps to the flat to grab our suitcases, say goodbye to the ever present Matilda, and head out the door with our driver Sergio. On the way down we pass a grasshopper I was considering taking on the trip with us because he would have fed two of us.

The drive from Dubrovnik to Kotor is 90km or about 11/2 hours plus the border crossing. We leave right at our requested time of 1:00 and head down the road in his VW Passat. Traffic is pretty heavy but moving, until we get to the border. First, we have to get our passport stamped for leaving Croatia, this takes about 10 minutes. We then drive for 1/2km and end up in a line for the Montenegro border

crossing...we are in line for almost two hours!!! Get our passport stamped, after we are rear ended by some guy from India in rental car, no damage but just a hassle.

Montenegro appears far less prosperous than Croatia. The buildings are drab, a lot of them concrete colored and plain. We go around the bay and make a pit stop since we have been in the car for about four hours at this point. Then hop back in and reach the fisherman's house.

The house is set back 12" from the road and the road is about 12 feet wide and then the water. The place is pretty small but OK. The bedrooms with their baths, are on the second and third floors. The steps to the second floor are not too bad but to the third are very steep and Shirley has trouble with the incline. So Carroll is on the top floor in the queen bed and Shirley and I get the bedroom with the

twin beds. That's OK until I lie down. The mattress feels about 18" wide and five feet long. My feet stick out a foot (!!!!!! pun) plus Shirley's headboard rattles against the wall every time she rolls over. The night will be long.

After an overview of what knob, switch or button, does what, the landlady's assistant whose name I can't remember, gives us a ride to a restaurant she highly recommends for dinner about one mile down the road. The food is damn good. Shirley and I both have a regional dish of lamb and potatoes and carrots, cooked in a pot for 6 hours and Carroll has a pot of mussels, french fries and a plate of about 100 olives plus we each have a dessert and, of course, a few adult

beverages. It is really good, our entire bill came to a total, with the tip, of 90 Euros.

The ladies make the decision we are walking back to the house. Yah, they forgot its a mile down the road, its windy, pitch black and we are walking on the road as there is little if any sidewalk. Eventually we dodge the cars, potholes and motorcycles and arrive back. We only have 13 steps up to the house so a lot better than Croatia.

14 floors, 3 miles and 8,214 steps.