RICHES OF MONTENEGRO: THE BAY OF KOTOR
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| Ðenoviči, the bay of Kotor |
Between the two fortresses stands a square orthodox church topped by a black cupola. Around that church a few cafes with terraces were invitations to sit down and savour the peaceful atmosphere of the square. Coming from Croatia, where we have spent nearly a month and a half, our first hours in Montenegro felt like a breeze.
We walked from the bus station to Stari Grad along pedestrian streets lined up with shops. It was mid afternoon. Two ladies were enjoying the sun in the manner of epicurean lizards, strategically positioned in front of their fashion shop where the sun rays reached. Light pink and grey were the prime colours on display in the shop window.
Despite being a medium sized town, Herceg Novi has a relaxing feel. People would answer questions very precisely and rapidly but they wouldn't do it in the hasty way we sometimes had experienced in Croatia, when people renting their apartment wanted to give all information in as little time as possible, concluding with "if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask", as if they wanted to expedite an unsavoury business and go back to their "better" life. Of course that was just a overall impression. We returned to the square of the Archangel Michael orthodox church and could hear some jazz tune played on the piano, so clearly that we thought it was actually someone playing live. We sat for a coffee at a terrace and we heard the saxophone and percussions being added to the piano, which made us reflect that it couldn't possibly be live music. The quality of those speakers was amazing. This shaped a particularly unique atmosphere, with the sun still warm but declining, some gentle breeze and some cool jazz music colouring the air in a very subtle and sophisticated way. It was a moment of resonance. We walked down the stairway that traversed the town vertically down to the sea shore and led to the harbour with a beautiful view on the Sea Fortress and the citadel. A bronze statue of Tvrkto I, the founder of Herceg Novi, looked upon the city with a cross in his right hand.
In Croatia, restaurants are often meant for tourists rather than locals. At least this is the feeling we had because food prices were rather expensive and calibrated around the purchasing power of Western tourists. In contrast Montenegro is much more affordable and comparable to Slovenia. We were recommended the Konoba Karaca for dinner. Grilled calamari, spinach and potato salad, accompanied by some local red wine from a grape called Vranac. That was the substance of my dinner, although the local speciality was mussels. The mother of the host family was cooking nearly in front of customers. We could see that people were prepared for winter. The veranda of the konoba was sealed with transparent plastic windows to keep the heat of the radiators dispatched next to some of the tables. In the evening, rare were the people sitting outside without a winter coat on. Two men and a woman were squatting on the stairs of the clocktower gate. They had brought their own drinks to spend that Friday night. Throughout the town the cafes and bistros were quietly lively for a Friday.
Saturday's plan was to walk over to Tivat. Blue sky and palm trees displaying their green bouquet of fringed leaves on top of a long a slender trunk over a background of golden mountains: that was the view we had when we left our apartment that morning and said goodbye to the town, beautiful in its own unpolished way.
We walked through Stari Grad down to the waterside and turned left to follow the seafront promenade towards the east. The light-blue light was amazing as a result of the reflection of the blue sky on the mirror-like surface of the sea. One could nearly feel the materiality of the light that enveloped everything it touched in a glorious halo and conveyed an utter feeling of peace. Fishermen seemed to be enjoying the serenity of the morning very much, having picked a place on one of the concrete platforms that serve as beach in the summer. The whole coast was lined-up with holiday resorts, some of them a little faded and old-fashioned, others more recent, but most of them closed for the winter.
Along the shore leading to Bijela and Kamenari, the Saturday mood was relaxed. Locals appeared to enjoy the place to themselves and recover from the past summer shock. An old man worked at scraping the bottom of his boat which had been put upside down on tyres laid on a concrete jetty, this way he was able to work and enjoy the warming sun and the company of passers by. Right before Ðenoviči, a large construction site was barring access to the shore. Porto Novi, a new resort town for the upper middle class was under construction and was being advertised with a series of personas each having a potential good reason to buy a property in Porto Novi and get an uplifting experience out of it. Families, yes but also retired people, middle-aged singles, sailing addicts, beach lovers, etc... The project was no doubt deeply inspired by the luxury experience of Porto Montenegro where we were heading to.
In Ðenoviči, the mood was gay. Men were sitting together in front of their coffees and talked about serious things while stylish young mothers walked on the road with baby buggies and chatted with their peers. It was still a village along a nice coastal road, planted with trees that were taller than the surrounding houses that had no more than two or three floors. The road was narrow enough to be a nightmare in the summer.
Bijela looked different. It wasn't anymore the same relaxed atmosphere. The harbour with two cranes and a few small container ships was not a hot holiday destination. Instead this is where workers would be residing. Houses had lost their charm and many of them where simple and old. There was a market place and several supermarkets.
However, further north on the town outskirts came a few more affluent box-shaped holiday resorts built recently with a large glass windows. Those were obviously closed for the season. The only place open was a cafe and pizzeria which had a stylish white waterside veranda terrace where young people in sport outfit had coffee meetings. It was a truly pleasant place and, more urgently for us, it had a toilet!
Two kilometres further north, the bay was narrowing into a channel of water, just a few hundred meters wide, that led to the back of the bay of Kotor. It was therefore the ideal location for a ferry to cross and cut the journey time between Kamenari and Tivat significantly by bypassing the forty kilometres going around the bay. Along the way, a billboard advertised for a "dreamy beach like never before", thirty kilometres away and featured a dream female creature walking dreamily in the water. Right behind that one, another billboard claimed "Bocasa, Good, Better, The Beach" three hundred meters, so that people could decide if the long legged creature was worth a thirty kilometre drive.
We hopped on the ferry to cross over to Lepetani.
We hopped on the ferry to cross over to Lepetani.
The presence of Porto Montenegro in Tivat is causing the two sides of the bay to be worlds apart. The gap is just extreme between, on the one hand, Bijela with its small container port, modest housing, mussels growing poles and rather modest tourist resorts and, on the other hand, Porto Montenegro that has grown like a bubble of ultra-luxury on the outskirts of Tivat.
Porto Montenegro is a marina designed for wealthy yacht owners to come and spend some good time away from home because the weather is good and there is all the infrastructure one desires with highly-secured waterfront residences, fancy restaurants and shops, expensive and questionably tasteful art shops. Many luxury brands have opened a shop on the waterside colonnade. The residences were nice and carefully manicured but not extravagant. There was a complimentary golf carts service to ferry around VIPs but also immigration officers in charge of controlling those arriving by sea on their yachts.
Yachts of various sizes were berthed in the harbour. Ironically the smallest one, though not small in absolute terms, was called "The world is not enough".
I was impressed that the waterfront promenade was open to anyone and therefore many people walked past, surely curious and perhaps envious of a richer lifestyle. One could obviously project oneself, in imagination, into higher circles. At the same time it was not any different than a stroll at Place Vendôme or Avenue George V in Paris.
Walking there with our backpacks and trekking attire certainly made us look weird, somewhat out-of-place. But you can't judge a book by its cover. In fact, the backpack might have been our invisibility cloak.
The Platinum night club advertised its daily program under the umbrella slogan "we love VIPs". It had Decadence Friday's and Decadence Saturday's, it must definitely have been the place to be if one would be let in! Two long-haired long-legged slender woman walked on high-heels along the promenade in the direction of a trendy café, one of them wearing light-pink mirror sunglasses (a confirmation of the trend we had seen in Croatia). I couldn't help thinking about Dali's elephants on stilts, perhaps because of the luminous background sky? As we walked back we saw the two at the cafe making portraits of each other. It was fun to see the domination grin expressed on one of them, the one that looked like a modern incarnation of Cruella in red jacket and black tights.
Tivat, the host-town of Porto Montenegro, is not that luxurious, though it has benefited, no doubt, from its vicinity. We had found a large flat for the night in a housing estate on the outskirts because it was close to the road we wanted to use the next day to cross the Vrmac mountain to reach Kotor.
For dinner, we went to a place recommended by our host, a restaurant called Big Ben in Seljanovo. It was a place popular with locals to eat and not simply drink coffees. Kids were running around between the different rooms playing hide and seek.
We left early the next morning to ascend the Vrmac at the top of which one had a breathtaking view on the entire T-shaped bay of Kotor from an elevation of seven hundred sixty six meters above sea level. The forested massif had many pomegranate trees loaded with ripe fruits and was a favourite hunting ground. The descent towards Kotor was following an old military road in zigzag along the cliff and landed in Muo, an ancient fisherman village opposite Kotor. We met quite a few people walking up for a Sunday picnic in the woods at the top of Vrmac. Down in the valley, three cruise ships were stationed in the bay, waiting for their passengers to finish visiting the old town.
Crossing Vrmac from Porto Montenegro to Kotor made one travel through time. Porto Montenegro is a new place aiming at making history with its master plan to brand itself as the obvious choice for jet-setters.
Kotor is a place of history, a walled city that once was under the protection of the Republic of Venice among many other conquerors throughout the centuries, similarly to all the other fortified towns on the Adriatic coast. But overall Kotor managed to secure a relative autonomy for a very large portion of its medieval history and had strong connections with the kingdom of Serbia.
The old town was built by the waterside at the extreme end of the Kotor bay at the foot of a rock, three hundred meters tall.
The modern destiny of Kotor, like Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and other historical places under UNESCO World Heritage listing is shaped by tourism.
Tourism is the new trade that has replaced the trade of goods that made the city rich in the past. It has become a playground for cruising selfie-addicts. The old town of Kotor looks like a living entertainment museum, full of cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops, etc... lodged in old palaces. We were staying in an apartment on the upper floor of the Bizanti palace. An apartment that had the odour of the past with the sweet and sour smell that dust and cooking end-up leaving on carpets, curtains and wallpapers. Autumn colors were everywhere, brown wooden floor, beige walls, wood furniture, leather sofas, red-brown carpets. An antique amphora recovered from the sea stood next to the TV set itself below a fantastic-themed painting, that could depict some medieval legend or come straight out of "Lord of the Rings", featuring a pensive man seating next to an underground lake and behind him in a yellow glow the shape of a ghost, or a soul, draped from head to toes. On the opposite wall, was the portrait of a man standing in traditional military uniform with a blue pair of trousers, black leather boots, a white cloak tied around the waist with a golden belt and a black hat. The man had a nice moustache and held a sabre in his right hand. On each side of the portrait a gun was framed in wood. The other paintings of the living room included an impressionist view of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a snow landscape in the forest and the portrait of a female Saint.
The apartment was overlooking the square on which the main city gate opens. The Bizanti palace has an inner courtyard with a stone staircase, whose pillars are carved with floral designs. The old town has both a Catholic Cathedral and an Orthodox Church, heritage of the diverse heritage of the city.
Cats are fed by locals and seem to be living the good life. Early morning, we went out in the cold because we wanted to climb the ladder of Kotor, a rather steep path carved along the rock at the back of the old town. On the small square leading to the northern gate, a dozen cats slept curled one against the other to fend off the cold until breakfast would be served by caring old ladies. We crossed the river bridge to reach the side where the trail of the ladder that leads to the plateau. The ladder of Kotor was used as the main road by people and their donkeys loaded with goods to commute between Kotor and the Lovčen highlands. Along the path one could appreciate the panorama of the bay and the town wall that had been built directly over the cliff.
Porto Montenegro is a marina designed for wealthy yacht owners to come and spend some good time away from home because the weather is good and there is all the infrastructure one desires with highly-secured waterfront residences, fancy restaurants and shops, expensive and questionably tasteful art shops. Many luxury brands have opened a shop on the waterside colonnade. The residences were nice and carefully manicured but not extravagant. There was a complimentary golf carts service to ferry around VIPs but also immigration officers in charge of controlling those arriving by sea on their yachts.
Yachts of various sizes were berthed in the harbour. Ironically the smallest one, though not small in absolute terms, was called "The world is not enough".
I was impressed that the waterfront promenade was open to anyone and therefore many people walked past, surely curious and perhaps envious of a richer lifestyle. One could obviously project oneself, in imagination, into higher circles. At the same time it was not any different than a stroll at Place Vendôme or Avenue George V in Paris.
Walking there with our backpacks and trekking attire certainly made us look weird, somewhat out-of-place. But you can't judge a book by its cover. In fact, the backpack might have been our invisibility cloak.
The Platinum night club advertised its daily program under the umbrella slogan "we love VIPs". It had Decadence Friday's and Decadence Saturday's, it must definitely have been the place to be if one would be let in! Two long-haired long-legged slender woman walked on high-heels along the promenade in the direction of a trendy café, one of them wearing light-pink mirror sunglasses (a confirmation of the trend we had seen in Croatia). I couldn't help thinking about Dali's elephants on stilts, perhaps because of the luminous background sky? As we walked back we saw the two at the cafe making portraits of each other. It was fun to see the domination grin expressed on one of them, the one that looked like a modern incarnation of Cruella in red jacket and black tights.
Tivat, the host-town of Porto Montenegro, is not that luxurious, though it has benefited, no doubt, from its vicinity. We had found a large flat for the night in a housing estate on the outskirts because it was close to the road we wanted to use the next day to cross the Vrmac mountain to reach Kotor.
For dinner, we went to a place recommended by our host, a restaurant called Big Ben in Seljanovo. It was a place popular with locals to eat and not simply drink coffees. Kids were running around between the different rooms playing hide and seek.
We left early the next morning to ascend the Vrmac at the top of which one had a breathtaking view on the entire T-shaped bay of Kotor from an elevation of seven hundred sixty six meters above sea level. The forested massif had many pomegranate trees loaded with ripe fruits and was a favourite hunting ground. The descent towards Kotor was following an old military road in zigzag along the cliff and landed in Muo, an ancient fisherman village opposite Kotor. We met quite a few people walking up for a Sunday picnic in the woods at the top of Vrmac. Down in the valley, three cruise ships were stationed in the bay, waiting for their passengers to finish visiting the old town.
Crossing Vrmac from Porto Montenegro to Kotor made one travel through time. Porto Montenegro is a new place aiming at making history with its master plan to brand itself as the obvious choice for jet-setters.
Kotor is a place of history, a walled city that once was under the protection of the Republic of Venice among many other conquerors throughout the centuries, similarly to all the other fortified towns on the Adriatic coast. But overall Kotor managed to secure a relative autonomy for a very large portion of its medieval history and had strong connections with the kingdom of Serbia.
The old town was built by the waterside at the extreme end of the Kotor bay at the foot of a rock, three hundred meters tall.
The modern destiny of Kotor, like Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and other historical places under UNESCO World Heritage listing is shaped by tourism.
Tourism is the new trade that has replaced the trade of goods that made the city rich in the past. It has become a playground for cruising selfie-addicts. The old town of Kotor looks like a living entertainment museum, full of cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops, etc... lodged in old palaces. We were staying in an apartment on the upper floor of the Bizanti palace. An apartment that had the odour of the past with the sweet and sour smell that dust and cooking end-up leaving on carpets, curtains and wallpapers. Autumn colors were everywhere, brown wooden floor, beige walls, wood furniture, leather sofas, red-brown carpets. An antique amphora recovered from the sea stood next to the TV set itself below a fantastic-themed painting, that could depict some medieval legend or come straight out of "Lord of the Rings", featuring a pensive man seating next to an underground lake and behind him in a yellow glow the shape of a ghost, or a soul, draped from head to toes. On the opposite wall, was the portrait of a man standing in traditional military uniform with a blue pair of trousers, black leather boots, a white cloak tied around the waist with a golden belt and a black hat. The man had a nice moustache and held a sabre in his right hand. On each side of the portrait a gun was framed in wood. The other paintings of the living room included an impressionist view of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a snow landscape in the forest and the portrait of a female Saint.
The apartment was overlooking the square on which the main city gate opens. The Bizanti palace has an inner courtyard with a stone staircase, whose pillars are carved with floral designs. The old town has both a Catholic Cathedral and an Orthodox Church, heritage of the diverse heritage of the city.
Cats are fed by locals and seem to be living the good life. Early morning, we went out in the cold because we wanted to climb the ladder of Kotor, a rather steep path carved along the rock at the back of the old town. On the small square leading to the northern gate, a dozen cats slept curled one against the other to fend off the cold until breakfast would be served by caring old ladies. We crossed the river bridge to reach the side where the trail of the ladder that leads to the plateau. The ladder of Kotor was used as the main road by people and their donkeys loaded with goods to commute between Kotor and the Lovčen highlands. Along the path one could appreciate the panorama of the bay and the town wall that had been built directly over the cliff.
images:
1/ Ðenoviči, the bay of Kotor
2/ Epicurean lizards, Herceg Novi
3/ Trvtko I in Herceg Novi
4/ Dreamy beach later or good beach now 5/ Porto Montenegro has long legs 6/ Kotor
3/ Trvtko I in Herceg Novi
4/ Dreamy beach later or good beach now 5/ Porto Montenegro has long legs 6/ Kotor
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| Epicurean lizards, Herceg Novi |
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| Trvtko I in Herceg Novi |
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| Dreamy beach later or good beach now |
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| Porto Montenegro has long legs |
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| Kotor |
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