Dubrovnik, Montenegro and back towards the north again

We took one of the many local buses into Dubrovnik, the friendly chaps on reception gave us a timetable for them all.  From the drop off point, about 200 feet above the old town, there are many flights of steps to reach the walled town.  Those with bad knees be warned therefore!  However, if the walk down puts you off the climb back up, you can take a bus from the city gates to the harbour bus station and pick up any of the local buses from there; this is what we did, but not before we’d climbed back up and then down again, having failed to locate the correct flights of steps and hence the correct bus stop, so John’s knee was in bad shape after that exercise.  We had decided against walking the walls around the town because of the steps involved, only to do even more when trying to find the bus stop!  It is a lovely old city, with lots of museums and churches to see and, needless to say, lots of people selling souvenirs and boat trips and the like.  On another day we took a trip to the shopping centre, mainly to buy a computer mouse and a Croatian/English dictionary.  However, we couldn’t find a dictionary, despite asking everywhere which shop/s would have one and only one shop had a mouse in stock, but it was not a wireless one and, at another shop, we could have ordered one but it would be 10 days before we could collect it!  John’s really missing eBay!

Wandering Minstrels We in Dubrovnik!

We met Thena and Judith on the camp site, two very friendly Canadians, who told me about a coach trip they had taken to Montenegro.  Like us they have UK vehicle insurance (their motorhome trip began in Scotland) so were unable to obtain insurance for non-EU countries and, like us also, had reached here by doing the Ploce – Trpanj crossing.   John opted out of the trip, having already over worked his bad knee in Dubrovnik, but I went and, if you read this Thena and Judith, many thanks for your help; I asked Ivan, (one of the 3 very friendly young chaps who run the camp site) to make a phone call to book the trip for me.  Off I went on a, weather wise, doubtful Saturday morning, which turned into torrential rain just as we left the bus in Kotor so, instead of visiting all the places that one should see there, I headed for the nearest restaurant and had an early lunch.  I was accompanied by Kelly, a very friendly young American who is studying at Stirling University, who said she would probably do the trip again a couple of days later in order to see what we had had to miss that day.  By the time we reached Budva we were in glorious sunshine and, although a pleasant little town, there is not much to see there, so Kelly and I wound our way through a maze of alleys in the old town and had dessert, outside this time, in a delightful little square!  Like Thena, I really wanted to see Montenegro and, although I didn’t pick the best day for my trip, I am pleased to have been.  I didn’t find anywhere, or anything, to beat the spectacular Croatian coastline, or it’s architecture, but I’m told that the bay of Kotor is something quite special, so it is a pity that that it was spoiled for me by the dreadful weather.

Kotor Bay Montenegro, taken at Perast

At least the weather improved the next day and we lazed around for 4 more days, finally heading off on Wed 19th, after saying our goodbyes to Ivan, Bozo and Mirko from the front office and Ivanka, who does a fantastic job of keeping all the facilities spotlessly clean!  Hello, at this point, to fellow travellers Pieter and Ellie, from Arnhem.

Unfortunately the heavens opened again that day, just as we were leaving and we drove through torrential rain for over 2 hours.  I said earlier that we would stop in Ston on our way back, but that didn’t happen;  John missed the turning for the town centre and, because he didn’t want to go looking for his mussels while it was bucketing down, he just kept going.   All along the peninsular road it was like driving amongst waterfalls; it was just abating when we reached the ferry terminal at Tripanj at midday.  We could have taken the 12.15 crossing, but we were starving hungry so booked the next one (5.15pm) and went in search of lunch; we found it in a pleasant konoba where the menu offered John his mussels and a choice of sardines or mackerel for me, but they had none and we ended up with a mixed meat platter, loads of food and beautifully cooked, but the “mixed” turned out to be 5 pork chops and a beefburger!  It’s still early season here so most things are still only available at weekends.

Back in Ploce in the early evening, we set off for the Ulvala Borova ACSI campsite at Podaca.  We found nothing there to inspire us to stay and the next morning moved just along the road to Camping Viter at Zaostrog, where we found Mick and Fran, from Gatwick, who we’d met in a Lidl carpark about a couple of weeks earlier.  We also met Ann and John Harding, from Basildon; on the morning they left Ann and I chatted while the two Johns changed a flat wheel on their caravan!   We would have stayed on that site longer if they had not wanted £3.50 per day each for wi-fi connection to the mobile and the laptop; we did without for those 2 days and moved on, but not until we’d chatted with Przemek and Malgorzata, from Poland, who gave us some great tips on campsites to stay on when we get to Poland.   We then carried on up the coast to Makarska, stopping at Camp Jure for 2 days, where the staff are lovely as are the promenade and town, but there is a huge amount of building work going on at the edge of the site.

Sunset at Makaska