August 5-6 -Three Countries
I had arranged to pick up my daughter at the Dubrovnik airport in Croatia. She was coming to Montenegro, Kotor Bay for a class reunion (they have only been out of school for only one year) and a summer beach vacation. We were spending the night in the Hotel Idea (yes, that is the real name) in Tirana, Albania and GPS informed me that it was a 5-hour drive from Tirana to Dubrovnik airport. I planned to leave by 8:00 am to get to there 30 minutes prior to her flight's scheduled arrival. It did not work out.
Breakfast began at 7:00am. We showed up at 6:30 because, since we did not have any phone service, our phones did not change time when we left Greece and entered Albania. The latter is on central European time while the former shares a time zone with Turkey. I mistakenly thought the night before that since we were in Albania their clocks must be incorrect.
When we finally arrived at the correct time we had an adequate breakfast at the hotel. I was spoiled by the prior breakfast at the ski lodge, so while this was a perfectly fine breakfast, it paled in comparison. We left almost on time and, courtesy of the GPS we downloaded in the hotel, without getting lost. The traffic in Tirana was fairly heavy, but the travel actually got worse as we left Tirana. The main road north is a survey two-lane road with lots of truck traffic and, because there was traffic in both directions there were few opportunities to pass; even when I was able to do so, I just encountered another truck. I should know better by now.
Outside of Tirana, Albania seemed to be pretty poor. We saw many more animal-drawn carts than in any other country and many of the structures looked as if they were very old and in need of maintenance. Of course, they could have been palaces on the inside. The area was heavily agricultural, but much of it was not mechanized and the farms seemed to be smaller, like India. However, the road was largely free of potholes.
So we were behind schedule when we reached the Albanian/Montenegro border. This was a strange crossing. The Albanian immigration officer briefly looked at our paperwork and waved us forward, without giving us the paperwork back. I thought that we were being sent to Albanian customs, but no, the paperwork had been passed to the Montenegrin immigration officers. They also asked for auto documentation, but also quickly passed us through, but not before giving us a pamphlet that indicated that all foreigners had to pay a .5 euro tax per day. There is a 48-hour grace period for paying and since we were only passing through Montenegro, we concluded that it did not apply to us.
The passage through Montenegro along the coast is a very scenic and at times breathtaking drive. However, it is slow under the best conditions and since this is the summer and the height of the tourist season, when Europeans of all stripes and flags come to the coast to enjoy the beach (very rocky and narrow) and sun, passage at times was tortuously slow, particularly when passing through the numerous towns that are present in virtually every bay into which the tourists flocked. I felt as if I was driving on Route 1 along the Florida coast in February. Unfortunately, T-Mobile and Montenegro have not gotten together, so we were out of plan coverage with texts at .50 a pop and calls for $5.99 per minute, so it was pricey getting in touch with my daughter. There was no problem with directions; there was only one road along the coast.
I then entered into a long-distance electronic dance with my daughter about the best way to meet. Should she take the bus to Kotor or should she wait at the airport? i was not sure where I was or how long it would take for me to get to Dubrovnik. We ended up making bad choices. I thought that I was further away than I was and I also thought that she could get a bus directly to Kotor at the airport. Turns out I was past Kotor and she could only get a bus to Dubrovnik and from there connect to Kotor.
So she ended up taking the bus to Dubrovnik and waiting for us there while we passed the airport and eventually picked her up at the bus station mid afternoon. On the way there we took another ferry that cut across one of the fjord-like bays, avoiding the need to drive around it. The Montenegro/Croatia border crossing took about 20 minutes. Not a lot of inspection by the officers, but just a long line, particularly at the non EU passport gate. However, over in the other direction going into Montenegro, it looked like a 2-hour wait.
Rather than try to see Dubrovnik that afternoon or drive back into Montenegro, we decided to drive about an hour north up to Mali Ston at the base of the Peljesac Peninsula. We had eaten lunch there in May, the coastal drive is spectacular (we had done it up and down in May) and Ston is a great place to relax for 24 hours. We stayed at a small inn, Villa Koruna, that was on the dock on a finger off the Adriatic Sea and its restaurant was adjacent to the small harbor. Ston has a Great Wall that climbs up and then down the mountain to Mali Ston. Rather than climb the wall we decided to go swimming in the bay. There was a small beach. The water temperature was perfect and we swam for about an hour. Then we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant.
The next morning I again went for a swim as my daughter slept in. We had breakfast at the hotel. A very different menu than I had become used to, a platter of several meats, cheeses and bread. No cucumbers or tomatoes, although I ordered watermelon. After breakfast we hiked a portion of the wall. A very relaxing stay.
We drove back down to Dubrovnik and due to the need to get my daughter on the 3:30 bus to Kotor, our tour of the city was limited. We entered at the Pile Gate and strolled down the Stradun. Checked out Onofrio's Big Fountain (you can drink that water) and then passed through Luza Square and by Orlando's Column, a symbol of Dubrovnik's independence from Venice and the site of major government announcements. We walked around the harbor and entered some cathedrals and then had some lunch. Got my daughter back to the bus station on time, but they overbooked the bus and she was standing in the aisle. They wheeled out a second bus to which she transferred which left before the regularly scheduled bus, She got to Kotor on time; 98 kuna fare. That currency was created under the Ustase, the Nazi puppet state set up during WWII that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs. Imagine what the local Serbs felt in 1991 when the newly declared independent Croatia adopted the same currency?
We then turned north, over the Franjo Tudman Bridge and along the Split-Dubrovnik coastal road for the fifth time -- it was still scenic -- on our way to Plitvice National Park. After about 2 hours we turned inland onto the relatively new toll road. This runs near and roughly parallel to the Bosnian border and goes through mountainous and sparsely populated terrain that was captured by the Yugoslavian People's Army (Serbia) in 1991, and recaptured by Croatia in Operation Storm in 1995. Many of the villages we passed seemed to be deserted, possibly abandoned by Serbs after the Croatian reconquest. The road is an engineering marvel. It has many tunnels, bridges and at times clings to the side of mountains. With all that it is an expensive toll road.
The last hour of the drive took us off the toll road and on to the old Split-Dubrovnik "highway." It is a two-lane road that made for slow travel. We arrived at our residence, the Milan Guest House, at about 10:00, under a very starry sky.
I had arranged to pick up my daughter at the Dubrovnik airport in Croatia. She was coming to Montenegro, Kotor Bay for a class reunion (they have only been out of school for only one year) and a summer beach vacation. We were spending the night in the Hotel Idea (yes, that is the real name) in Tirana, Albania and GPS informed me that it was a 5-hour drive from Tirana to Dubrovnik airport. I planned to leave by 8:00 am to get to there 30 minutes prior to her flight's scheduled arrival. It did not work out.
Breakfast began at 7:00am. We showed up at 6:30 because, since we did not have any phone service, our phones did not change time when we left Greece and entered Albania. The latter is on central European time while the former shares a time zone with Turkey. I mistakenly thought the night before that since we were in Albania their clocks must be incorrect.
When we finally arrived at the correct time we had an adequate breakfast at the hotel. I was spoiled by the prior breakfast at the ski lodge, so while this was a perfectly fine breakfast, it paled in comparison. We left almost on time and, courtesy of the GPS we downloaded in the hotel, without getting lost. The traffic in Tirana was fairly heavy, but the travel actually got worse as we left Tirana. The main road north is a survey two-lane road with lots of truck traffic and, because there was traffic in both directions there were few opportunities to pass; even when I was able to do so, I just encountered another truck. I should know better by now.
Outside of Tirana, Albania seemed to be pretty poor. We saw many more animal-drawn carts than in any other country and many of the structures looked as if they were very old and in need of maintenance. Of course, they could have been palaces on the inside. The area was heavily agricultural, but much of it was not mechanized and the farms seemed to be smaller, like India. However, the road was largely free of potholes.
So we were behind schedule when we reached the Albanian/Montenegro border. This was a strange crossing. The Albanian immigration officer briefly looked at our paperwork and waved us forward, without giving us the paperwork back. I thought that we were being sent to Albanian customs, but no, the paperwork had been passed to the Montenegrin immigration officers. They also asked for auto documentation, but also quickly passed us through, but not before giving us a pamphlet that indicated that all foreigners had to pay a .5 euro tax per day. There is a 48-hour grace period for paying and since we were only passing through Montenegro, we concluded that it did not apply to us.
The passage through Montenegro along the coast is a very scenic and at times breathtaking drive. However, it is slow under the best conditions and since this is the summer and the height of the tourist season, when Europeans of all stripes and flags come to the coast to enjoy the beach (very rocky and narrow) and sun, passage at times was tortuously slow, particularly when passing through the numerous towns that are present in virtually every bay into which the tourists flocked. I felt as if I was driving on Route 1 along the Florida coast in February. Unfortunately, T-Mobile and Montenegro have not gotten together, so we were out of plan coverage with texts at .50 a pop and calls for $5.99 per minute, so it was pricey getting in touch with my daughter. There was no problem with directions; there was only one road along the coast.
I then entered into a long-distance electronic dance with my daughter about the best way to meet. Should she take the bus to Kotor or should she wait at the airport? i was not sure where I was or how long it would take for me to get to Dubrovnik. We ended up making bad choices. I thought that I was further away than I was and I also thought that she could get a bus directly to Kotor at the airport. Turns out I was past Kotor and she could only get a bus to Dubrovnik and from there connect to Kotor.
So she ended up taking the bus to Dubrovnik and waiting for us there while we passed the airport and eventually picked her up at the bus station mid afternoon. On the way there we took another ferry that cut across one of the fjord-like bays, avoiding the need to drive around it. The Montenegro/Croatia border crossing took about 20 minutes. Not a lot of inspection by the officers, but just a long line, particularly at the non EU passport gate. However, over in the other direction going into Montenegro, it looked like a 2-hour wait.
Rather than try to see Dubrovnik that afternoon or drive back into Montenegro, we decided to drive about an hour north up to Mali Ston at the base of the Peljesac Peninsula. We had eaten lunch there in May, the coastal drive is spectacular (we had done it up and down in May) and Ston is a great place to relax for 24 hours. We stayed at a small inn, Villa Koruna, that was on the dock on a finger off the Adriatic Sea and its restaurant was adjacent to the small harbor. Ston has a Great Wall that climbs up and then down the mountain to Mali Ston. Rather than climb the wall we decided to go swimming in the bay. There was a small beach. The water temperature was perfect and we swam for about an hour. Then we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant.
The next morning I again went for a swim as my daughter slept in. We had breakfast at the hotel. A very different menu than I had become used to, a platter of several meats, cheeses and bread. No cucumbers or tomatoes, although I ordered watermelon. After breakfast we hiked a portion of the wall. A very relaxing stay.
We drove back down to Dubrovnik and due to the need to get my daughter on the 3:30 bus to Kotor, our tour of the city was limited. We entered at the Pile Gate and strolled down the Stradun. Checked out Onofrio's Big Fountain (you can drink that water) and then passed through Luza Square and by Orlando's Column, a symbol of Dubrovnik's independence from Venice and the site of major government announcements. We walked around the harbor and entered some cathedrals and then had some lunch. Got my daughter back to the bus station on time, but they overbooked the bus and she was standing in the aisle. They wheeled out a second bus to which she transferred which left before the regularly scheduled bus, She got to Kotor on time; 98 kuna fare. That currency was created under the Ustase, the Nazi puppet state set up during WWII that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs. Imagine what the local Serbs felt in 1991 when the newly declared independent Croatia adopted the same currency?
We then turned north, over the Franjo Tudman Bridge and along the Split-Dubrovnik coastal road for the fifth time -- it was still scenic -- on our way to Plitvice National Park. After about 2 hours we turned inland onto the relatively new toll road. This runs near and roughly parallel to the Bosnian border and goes through mountainous and sparsely populated terrain that was captured by the Yugoslavian People's Army (Serbia) in 1991, and recaptured by Croatia in Operation Storm in 1995. Many of the villages we passed seemed to be deserted, possibly abandoned by Serbs after the Croatian reconquest. The road is an engineering marvel. It has many tunnels, bridges and at times clings to the side of mountains. With all that it is an expensive toll road.
The last hour of the drive took us off the toll road and on to the old Split-Dubrovnik "highway." It is a two-lane road that made for slow travel. We arrived at our residence, the Milan Guest House, at about 10:00, under a very starry sky.
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