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In Which I Reach A New Country.. Literally

September 3, 2008 by Mike

Route: Dubrovnik (Croatia) - Igalo (Montenegro) - Herceg Novi - Perast - Kotor

Montenegro is the 20th country I've visited on this trip (having crossed my 27th border).

As an independent country, it's only a month and a half older than BesideTheSeaside!

And what do I know about Montenegro?

1. Did not have a 'good' war -- effectively Serbia's mini-me in the 90s.
2. Stars in the most recent Bond James Bond film: the casino in Casino Royale in in Montenegro.

Or so we were led to believe.. because in a shock move my first moments in Montenegro were spent in the company of three Brits, hanging out at the border waiting for their work visas to be processed. "It's taking forbloodyever," which, given they'll be on film unit per diems means they should all be millionaires by the time they get into the country proper.

"Yeah, it says in the film it's Montenegro," one of them told me with a pitying shake of the head. "But it isn't. James Bond isn't, y'know, real."

I was dumbstruck. Didn't know what to say. All my plans laid waste.. if that casino isn't real, where the bloomin' hell am I going to make the money to pay for this trip?

I started the day in Croatia, doing the chores. I had to find a new bulb for the headlight -- not bad that it lasted 39,500 miles, in this disposable age -- and that took me almost as long as my visit to the Stari Grad, the Old Town of Dubrovnik.

This is only partly because I didn't take to Dubrovnik. You see, my Croatian doesn't stretch to asking for Headlights'R'Us. Nor does it understand the directions when someone eventually cottons on. Round the houses I go before finding help at a Renault garage, of all places. So I now have a good idea of what the area around the historic heart of Dubrovnik looks like.

All of which means that, by the time I park the bike under the giant fortifications that guard the city, I am hot'n'sweaty'n'tired. I've seen the modern city. The historic, mediaeval city.. or more to the point, the historic, mediaeval City State, known for most of its life as Ragusa, now Slavified as Dubrovnik.. having been built up in my head as one of the high points of the trip.. leaves me.. it surprises me too, believe me!.. sorely disappointed.

Same old Mike: it's the fact that the whole place is a theme park for tourists. Sure it's authentic.. the bits that weren't destroyed by the Serb bombs.. but just you try and buy a tin of paint for the bedroom or a cat-flap or a bookshelf or a bucket.. you can't. However, if you wanted to decorate your new bedroom with nothing but Dubrovnik tea-towels, Dubrovnik fridge magnets, Dubrovnik postcards, Dubrovnik ceramics, Dubrovnik lace, Dubrovnik ball-point pens, Dubrovnik and perhaps a Rooney or Gerrard football shirt.. no probs.

There's so much that is great about the place.

The walls are beyond parallel. Though they do feel a bit, well, clean. Sanitised. Disney-fied. I know I sound pernickity.

The Maritime Museum is top-notch and is a good way to bone up on the history of Ragusa/ Dubrovnik -- its maritime history *was* its history.. Ragusa was never more than the city, a handful of nearby islands and a narrow stretch of the mainland.. *everything* was geared around its maritime powers and expertise. It survived for so long precisely because it wasn't big enough to threaten anyone. instead, it did business with them instead.

There is a memorial space in one of the old palaces dedicated to the soldiers who lost their lives when Dubrovnik was besieged and shelled -- not in 1358 or 166 but in 1991-92. 1992! What were you doing in 1992? I was a football journalist working for a Premium Rate phone line, meeting the first Mrs With and worrying about the price of fish. Ye gods! And people here were dying as the former Yugoslavia tore itself apart.

There are 137 photographs on the walls --

-- some of the young soldiers who were killed. And they were young - some born in the early 70s, most in the 60s. Some of the pictures were clearly copied from passports. Others perhaps date from their induction into the army. Others from graduation -- college or perhaps high school. They were young. There are some eye-wateringly bad haircuts. Didn't we all? These men never had a chance to grow out of them.

1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968.. I scour the pictures searching for a man who was born in 1965. Like me. So I could look at his face and try to work out why we had such different lives. Would there be something in his eyes? But..

and I know I'm going on and on, but this has completely freaked me out..

none of these dead men were born in 1965. Perhaps 15 of them were born in '64; and 20 in '66; and 15 in '67. It's that kind of concentration on people of my generation. But *none* who were born in 1965. I went round the room again, double-checking the simple cards underneath each photograph. These wars in the former Yugoslavia.. that I've "claimed" in the last weeks as being "my" wars.. because of my age, because they took place so close to my home.. and now a small (I know, a very small) reminder that they weren't my wars after all.

No. Nobody did this to Norwich:

That's a map of the historic centre of Dubrovnik, a World Heritage site, one of the great world cities -- a place where thousands were trapped by artillery on the mountains that tower over the city, and from a naval blockade. Red indicates buildings that burned to the ground under attack from "the Yugoslav army, the Serbians and the Montenegrins in 1991-92". The black triangles were direct hits on historic buildings. The black circles were shells that landed in the street. (And I'm heading for Montenegro... eeek!)

But but but. Let me show you the main street of old Dubrovnik today. If there is a *single* person in this picture who isn't a tourist, I'll eat my hat:

The real problem? This isn't Venice. Man, I loved that place, all the dirt and scuttle and hidden corners and movement and Real Life and getting on with things despite the tourists. Poor old Dubrovnik, it lost military and trade battles with Venice for a thousand years. Now it loses the Battle Of Mike's Affections.

Yet again, then, the final moments in a beautiful country disappoint me. Perhaps Mr Freud would suggest that I'm actually disappointed to be leaving.. and, as with Italy, I take that feeling out on the last town in the land. As with Italy, I suspect I'll be coming back to find out more.. hopefully.. soon.

Croatia is pretty thin down here. Just over the mountains that tower over the coastline lies Bosnia. And then, suddenly, I'm in Montenegro.

First thing to do is buy insurance. The green card isn't valid here. (I realised yesterday it hasn't been valid in Croatia or Bosnia either. Oooooops.) I'm directed to an office next to the border post where an ugly man, with a stunningly beautiful girlfriend sitting on his lap, overcharges me for a policy I imagine is less than useless and probably completely invalid. She's probably not cheap (and I'm not being sexist.. just realistic.)

First impressions: so important.

Secondhand shops (called "Secondhand") abound; feral dogs on the street and clustered at roundabouts; trucks slow, old, rusting and belching black smoke; road conditions deteriorate; road signs disappear; policemen more visible: all on foot. These are classic signs, to me, of increasing poverty and hardship. It brings to mind Paraguay, and Goa, and Mississippi. I take a deep breath and press on.

Through the first big town, Herceg Novi.

-- it isn't very Herceg any more. Herceg recalls the man who founded the town, the Bosnian Herzog Stjepan Tvrtko I, and gave his name to Hercegovina. Which is a completely different country.. more than, ooooh, ten miles away.
-- it isn't particularly 'Novi' any more, it was founded in 1382.

Welcome to the Balkans.

But Herceg Novi most certainly is on the shores of the Bay of Kotor -- Boka Kotorska -- which is one of the most stunning stretches of Europe's coast I've seen so far. I had no idea it was coming.. I only got a map of the country when I crossed the frontier and, as ever, while I've been boning up on the history I remain happily guidebookless. So I stumbled on this higgledypiggledy contortion of seaside blissfully unawares.

I got as far as Kotor, on the top right of the bay, tonight. There's a car ferry that cuts off this inner bay-within-a-bay. When *you* ride round the coast of Europe.. and if you haven't already started making plans, I'd like to know the reason why.. I plead with you not to take the ferry. Ride all the way around the bay. It is, without a doubt, [drum roll], one of the Top Ten roads besidetheseaside.

I arrived in the bay in late afternoon and reached Kotor by early evening.

The bay is surrounded by high mountains and as the road twists to the left and right, weaving its way around the shoreline, I was at one moment facing semi-darkness and impenetrable mountain walls.. then round the corner and pointing towards a mountainside baked red in the glow of the late afternoon sun. Small clusters of white-walled, red-rooved, green-shuttered houses huddle beside the shore and rise tentatively up the first slopes of the mountains. Wherever you turn there's a church or monastery, Catholic or Orthodox. Spot the Venetian campaniles -- the tall, thin, square tower topped with the elongated wizard's hat.

The road is all curves, narrow and inviting, with just an occasional low stone wall between me and the deep blue sea.

See what I mean:

I was taking so many pictures that two teenage tourists on rented scooters, doing no more than 20kmph, kept overtaking me. We must have swapped the lead about ten times as we all wallowed in the natural beauty all around and above.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Reach A New Country.. Literally

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