15 years. 15 consecutive calender years between 2005 and 2019. I obtained my first passport in 2005 at 18 years of age, and in every subsequent year, I left the country at least once (Don't go back and check, because this only goes back to 2007 anyway).
And then we arrived in 2020, and in 2020 and 2021, for some reason we didn't go anywhere.
Ok, it wasn't just 'for some reason', I think we are all aware that the reason was the global pandemic, nowhere was safe, except locked up inside my house.
It wasn't the hassle of mandatory self-isolation, or mandatory testing that put us off, we could have handled that, and we definitely wouldn't have been 'those' people ending their holidays early to get home before isolation orders came into effect, because seriously, if you are rushing home from a holiday, in order to make it to work, your priorities are incredibly out of order and you need to slow down and take stock of your life for a minute. Here's a free life-hack for everyone if this ever happens again, if you return from a holiday during a mandated stay at home order for anyone returning from abroad, you have a free excuse for NOT showing up at work, that is enshrined in law. You are welcome.
No, the reason we didn't go away was because, seriously, did you not read any of the news? There was a global pandemic going on, and we didn't fancy getting sick. Also, when I'm on holiday, the various activities and the eating out at restaurants is the holiday, I'm not entirely sure what's left to do if you show up somewhere and everywhere is closed. Anyone?
Ok, so seeing as it is still 2022 now, and I have taken this blog down from the attic, blown off the dust and plopped 8 brand new size C batteries under the slightly cracked rear cover, you've probably already figured out that the travelling drought that was the first 2 years of this decade, was ended recently. Which it was.
We did a bit of proverbial toe-dipping by making 1 trip to Llandudno and 2 to Sheffield in order to watch snooker, and found those trips were fine, no issues whatsoever. So shortly afterwards, we were talking and we said, "Hey, maybe we should do that thing we like to do, you know the one, where we're in a place that isn't our house for a little while, where the weather is nicer, and we spend a bunch more money because we'll eat out every day".
The word we were looking for was 'Holiday', naturally, after such a long time, the lingo had eluded us.
So, approximately one week later, we found ourselves in sunny Montenegro, specifically, Kotor on the Adriatic sea.
Now comes the portion of the evening where I can punctuate my lines of text using images collected from my phone. We arrived on a Wednesday, several hours before the check-in time, and phoned the renter to ask if we could leave our bags anywhere. She said yes, then showed up and just let us in. That set the tone really for the rest of the holiday, everyone was just nice.
We had an apartment overlooking a small river just outside the old town (which can be seen just towards the right hand side of this picture from the balcony).
After a walk and something to eat in the old town, the majority of day 1 was done, but we made the most of our time here and every day had a different activity of some description.
Oo, actually, lets do it like this:
Day 2 (Slightly ominous sound effect)
Day 2 took us on a walk along the coast where we followed a footpath between a small pebble beach and the road (which actually coincidentally separated a handful of restaurants from their outdoor eating areas, bringing to mind a level from overcooked where a road separates a kitchen from the serving area. though in this scenario, the road was pretty quite and the waiters weren't working against the clock).
As we approached the end of the walkable stretch of coastline, we were offered a boat ride for a lower price than we had seen along the way, so we accepted. By the miracle of story telling, we can now jump straight to that boat ride as though that happened instantaneously and not a couple of hours later, when we had to return.
Our first stop was Our Lady of The Rocks, one of 2 tiny islands near the mouth of Kotor Bay, it consisted of a church and a gift shop and... yea.
The first interesting thing about the island is it is completely man made, and it is built upon the remains of sunken ships due to a history of attempted invasions being thwarted by blocking off the one entrance to the bay.
The other interesting thing is the gift shop (not now, now it's just a place to grab a magnet or a large novelty pencil), but it's original purpose was as a room to settle blood feuds. Feuding families would be locked inside the building, and would not be allowed out until the feud was settled. Or one of them was dead (though I suppose that does settle a feud too).
Next up was the island prison. I don't think it was the same one used for slave labour. Annoyingly this used to be a tourist spot that you could visit with many of the rooms and facilities still intact, but in the infinite wisdom of the government, it's been effectively bulldozed in favour of a large Hotel and Casino, because hooray for Capitalism eh?
Most interesting about passing this spot was my phone welcomed me to Croatia. So for a brief moment, I could have phoned or texted people without paying the extortionate roaming charges still present in Montenegro. Not that I really needed to.
The final (intended) stop of the boat tour was to the blue cave, which is a cave, where the water looks blue. This is the obligatory stop on any boat tour where you are allowed some time to swim.
No-one did. We were in the wrong shoulder season really, so the sea was far too cold, also, we had just been battered by winds while making our way out here, personally I was in no rush to make the journey back more uncomfortable.
This meant there was leftover time to visit Perast, a tiny coastal town facing the lady of the rocks from before. Only about 20 minutes though, so a quick wander down the coast to buy a small bottle of some ginger juice and return just in time to head back.
On the boat we got chatting to a couple sat next to us, a lady from Montenegro and her husband from Liverpool (I believe it is one of the natural laws of the universe that you are guaranteed to find a scouser wherever you are in the world), she told us about a sort of pastry she enjoyed that you could buy from a bakery. I had forgotten the name by the time we entered a bakery a couple of days later, but I saw something that looked like what she had described, a sort of filled pastry, it was large, I thought we should at least try it, so thought we could get one to share and see if we liked it. I pointed to it and asked what it was. Not understanding me, she picked it up and wrapped it up for me. A moment later seemingly having not heard this attempted interaction, Rachael had the same idea upon spotting these items herself and came to the counter alongside me and asked what it was. Therefore we walked out with 2 of the things.
Day 3 (The same ominous sound effect)
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Day 3 would become the day of the secret beach. We started the day by walking, this time heading in the opposite direction around the bay towards a part of the area we did look at apartments in. The area was quieter with smaller unlit roads, and down by the coastline was a tiny little pebble beach surrounded by a hill with trees, with no-one on it.
For the time we sat there, this beach was ours, we sat and read and we skimmed stones on the water, but not at the same time due to the risk of accidentally skimming e-readers across the water.
While walking back, we realised how we were glad we hadn't booked an apartment on this side, it was nice, that wasn't the problem, but walking along small coastal roads without pavements is fine during the day, but at night would have been a different story, and could effectively have given us a daylight curfew, or a necessity to take a taxi home if we found ourselves out in the old town at night. Which we generally were.
Day 4 (You know the sort of sound I mean? Like 2 notes, would sort of accompany text on a screen perhaps indicating the time or how long is left, as the scenes inbetween escalate up to something)
If you've been keeping track, Day 4 is a Saturday, and on this day we headed to the bus station and took a trip out of Kotor to Budva.
Budva is larger than Kotor with much larger hotels and beaches and is presumably a more popular tourist destination. Budva also has an old town, with similar tight streets, but without quite so many cats (Which are interestingly, 2 facts about Kotor I have yet to impart).
We stopped at a small restaurant and ate a pizza, where apparently someone on the next table mistook me for a waiter. This Guy. The one in shorts and a hawaiian shirt. He was sitting down and asked me if this table was ok. I replied, 'Yes. This one is our table'.
After a short walk through a park, where we stopped for a read, we headed back to the bus station and enjoyed the little zoo outside it. We had already come across it on the way out, but there was no point mentioning it twice, but this time, one of the rabbits stuck it's nose through the fence for Rachael to tickle him.
We returned to Kotor in time to see stages being set up, so we stuck around to watch the music later on.
The band were more or less what you would expect, guitarists, drummer and singer doing covers and songs in Montenegrin I could not understand, but that was when we discovered we had shown up for our holiday at the time they were celebrating their independence day, which was nice (Although, had we known in advance that no shops would be open for a large chunk of our holiday, we might have done some stocking up in advance of the weekend)
Day 5 (Something like that 'dun dun' at the start of law and order, I always thought that sound effect seemed a bit out of place, because it is sort of ominous, but I thought law and order was basically a procedural? Maybe it is secretly a horror, I don't know)
On this day, we began with something of a lazy day, but the day had other ideas.
We went out for a walk, we walked to the end of our road and came to a hill, the hill looked like it led to the castle on the top, the sky was a little dull and the air seemed cooler than normal, so we went for a stroll, a nice leisurely 2 hour stroll up a hill. In the scorching heat. Because of course the drop in temperature was a lie and the sun came back out to batter us on the way up.
It was fine really, and we really did take it at a leisurely pace, the return journey only took 45 minutes, but on the way up we kept stopping to rest and admire the view. As well as the goats.
And then we made it, all the way up to the castle on the top of the hill.
Well, the outside of it at least, with a small rickety ladder, perched precariously on the edge of the rocks just outside the wall, leading up to a window which was much smaller on the inside than the outside, accompanied by a sign warning people not to attempt access through the window. We decided that it was probably best not to disobey the sign in this instance. This picture doesn't do justice to the positioning of the ladder, in the picture, it looks like there is plenty of room where it is stood. There was not.
Day 6 (Just to clarify, I'm not actually building to something sinister, there's no general narrative and finale event coming, this is just a series of disparate events tied together by the fact that they all happened while we were in a different country for a few days, otherwise known as a holiday.) (Also Dun dun)
On Day 6 we wandered down to the markets they have outside the old town and bought some fruits (Strawberries if memory serves) and a couple of fancy cheeses.
What? I did warn you I wasn't building to anything, the days can't all be action packed and full of boat rides and ladders. Would it help if I said the bakery story from earlier may have belonged in this day? I just told it early, because it paired with the couple on the boat.
Also, in the evening, I ordered fish, and she filleted it right at the table, which was pretty cool. She asked if I wanted the head. I did not.
Day 7 (Pressing the sound effect button appears to have no effect, maybe it's broken. I press it again, still nothing. I ask that you imagine the sound effect is playing again, because we appear to be having some technical difficulties)
So on day 7 (Dun Dun) Damn you butt..(Dun Dun).
Day 7 became... That thing isn't going to go off again is it? No, I think we're good. Day 7 became our cultural day, where we thought we would visit the museums and such that Kotor had to offer.
We started with an art gallery not far from the main square. We walked in to a lovely and cool building, occupied only by a man sat near the door. As we entered, he stood and told us extremely apologetically, that the entrance fee was 5 euros.
We genuinely assumed from his tone he was about to tell us the place was closed, I've never had someone so apologetic while telling us the price of something. And it was for a good cause, the gallery we had entered was the gallery of solidarity, which was created following an earthquake in 1979 which devastated a large part of the surrounding area, where they collected artworks from all across Yugoslavia (as it was at the time).
A particular favourite of mine was a painting of Our Lady of The Rocks, mostly because I was able to recognise it and recognise it was painted from Perast.
The art gallery was only small, 3 rooms of artworks that we were told rotated through their 400 strong collection. But the ticket price was not just for this gallery and the feeling you get for contributing a small amount to a solidarity fund, they also allowed entrance to St Pauls Church and St Michaels Church.
So when we left, we dutifully followed his directions to St Pauls and found a massive church building, which was undergoing renovations, so it also had a guy on a ladder with a 'Don't mind me, go about your tourism' vibe. Up some stairs was an outdoor museum with shelves of old pieces of ornate stonework.
And we next made our way over to St Michaels, which was another display of old pieces of ornate stonework. But this time, everything was numbered and we had little binders telling us what everything was, and this to the right was... one of them. Yes sorry I didn't take notes.
(And Rachael was worried I wouldn't remember everything if I waited a few weeks to write this thing)
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