Oh Budva! We forgot to visit Sveti Stephen
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2011
1
14
18
Trip End
Oct 22, 2011
Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
It does have a marvelous Old Town though. Not as imposing as Kotor, but more intimate with narrow alleys and a lot of residents who must enjoy their gardening. Nice to walk around seeing ivy growing over arched walk ways and potted plants in small front gardens. Make the place look less museum like.
If it was just Josefa and myself, it would have been great to take our time reading in a quiet restaurant. Aidan and Rosa saw that little dream smashed and thrown into the Adriatic. Aidan was particularly stupid, making a concerted effort to sprint around the Old Town hitting and shouting as he went. Rosa was nagging for any bit of souvenir she saw and became obsessed about a cheese and bacon roll I didn't buy her, going on about it for hours after. Both could have done with a few well aimed smacks, but it was a bit busy so we thought the local beach may calm them down.
Pretty good beach by Balkan standards. Actual sand, very shallow and warm water and we didn't have to pay for the beach umbrella. Two Australian girls wrote in the guest book in our apartment that the beaches were so busy they couldn't sit down - this was July - and I could imagine it. Wouldn't take too many people to pack this beach out. Aidan enjoyed the shallow water, but Rosa didn't quite recover (wasps added to the misery) and eventually had a good cry, which sorted things out. Kids crash on holidays, you can see it building up.
Forgot to visit Sveti Stephen, one of those immensely cute villages built on a small piece of rock off the mainland, which was a pity. Lookes great in the photos. Queen Elizabeth has stayed there!
The next day we left around an hour late, as I had got talking to an English couple in another apartment. They were staying in Montenegro for three weeks! We both agreed the Kotor Bay road was fearsome and that tarmac was needed to get to Kotor View. He was a builder, and pointed out the imperfections of the new building, including the ridiculously narrow entry to the car park. He'd scrapped his car on the side - Josefa closed her eyes every time I drove down it. Very narrow!
We drove back to Dubrovnik via Bosnia for no particular reason than to say we visited Bosnia!
We visited Perast (in Montenegro) as a detour and took a boat out to Our Lady of the Rock, a church built on an island in the middle of the bay. We needed a guide to tell us about the place, so we spent most of the trip feeding fish. Looks awesome from the shore though. I overheard a tour guide tell her American guests a story about a tapestry that made them all declare it the saddest story ever, so made sure I'd follow it up. Here it is:
"The church also houses a collection of silver votive tablets and a
famous votive tapestry embroidered by Jacinta Kunić-Mijović from Perast.
It took her 25 years to finish it while waiting for her darling to come
from the war, and when she eventually finished it she became blind. She used golden
and silver fibres but what makes this tapestry so famous is the fact
that she also embroidered her own hair in it."
Wish I'd known that, Rosa likes sad and dramatic stories.
The landscape in Bosnia was brutal - rocky mountains with patches of ill tempered looking bushes and smashed stone farm buildings. We made it to Trebinje, a Bosnian town used by Dubrovniks as a source of cheap groceries and clothes. None of us bothered with shopping. Instead we took a walk around the slightly grotty park and town square. Nice enough town, but not really for tourists. It was a pity we couldn't get to Mostar to see the bridge, but too long a drive for the kids.
Not many countries in Europe have such a traumatic recent past as Bosnia-H. It is parcelled off into ethnic zones. A guide told us even Mostar has its left bank (Croats) and right bank (Muslims) and neither mix. Probably safer that way! Makes for a fascinating history though. Only downside is the sporadic violence, but the country seems to be going forward.
