Sunday, May 26, 2019

Cycling in Montenegro

Our very late bus finally arrived close to noon at Dubrovnik's Central Bus Station, and Darrell and I scored seats on the right side to view the Adriatic as we wound our way south to Montenegro and around Kotor Bay. Our destination was the town of Kotor where we would begin our 6-day bike trip with 3e Travel a local travel company based in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.

The Bay of Kotor, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is often described as the "southern most fjord", but married to a geologist, I can tell you it is really a "ria" - a drowned river valley and its steep limestone hills were not carved by glaciers!
NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day from 2017
 Lord Byron wrote this about the Bay of Kotor: “At the moment of the creation of our planet, the most beautiful merging of land and sea occurred at the Montenegrin seaside...When the pearls of nature were sworn, an abundance of them were strewn all over this area.” Of course, this has now manifested in hordes of visitors (including us) descending on this confined area.
View of Kotor from the castle - the red-roofs in bottom right are the old town
We met Zoran and Drazen of 3e Travel at our hotel in Kotor when they delivered the bicycles and went over basic directions. The next morning I toured Kotor, which actually is a double UNESCO World Heritage site - both for its well-preserved medieval old town including the Cathedral of St. Tryphon built in 1166, and for its more recent 16th and 17th century Venetian fortifications.

Me at the castle enjoying the incredible view
We took a late afternoon ride on the quieter road to the northwest of Kotor to check out the bikes before we began our tour the following day. The tour route is shown below beginning at the red dot in the upper left and ending with a round trip tour to the red dot in the lower right.

Tour Map with each number representing where we spent the nights
Our first official day of cycling was around the upper Bay - we were lucky it was a "no cruise ship" day because the traffic was greatly reduced. We cycled clockwise from Kotor and met another cycling couple on the loop. Rosemary and Chris have embarked on a 6-month post-retirement cycling trip from Sicily to Scandinavia. We chatted in a park and then visited the Roman mosaics in Risan together. You can follow their adventures here!
Darrell on our first day of cycling - around the Bay of Kotor
Our second day began with Drazen giving us a lift up the 25 sinuous turns to Lovcen National Park with great views looking down on the Bay. We cycled downhill to the small town of Njeguši, the birthplace of the long ruling (1696 to 1918) Petrovic family, and also known for local cheese and prosciutto that we added to our lunch. The extra fuel powered us back up the hill and we continued climbing through the Park. At the south end we turned downhill and coasted through the otherworldly white stone landscape.
White limestone, green pines and grape hyacinths
We cruised mostly downhill to Cetinje, slowing down for sheep! Cetinje is the old royal capital of Montenegro where the President still presides. It is a charming town, and must have Montenegro's best stone masons!
  
Sheep rule the road

Impressive stone wall in Cetinje
From Cetinje we had another lovely, mostly downhill, cruise through Lake Skadar National Park to the even smaller town of Virpazar on the north end of the lake. We stayed at a lovely family home where the hostess waited for us after dinner to share her homemade liqueur - a tasty blend of good quality vodka infused with fresh rosemary and left in the sun for ten days. This is my kind of recipe - two ingredients and not much work! We work up early the next morning to catch our ride with Kormoran boats. Lake Skadar is the largest lake on the Balkan Peninsula and is known for its biodiversity, including 270 species of birds. We saw an incredible number of grebes and two flocks of Dalmatian Pelicans.

Early morning birdwatching on the backwaters of Lake Skadar
Dalmatian Pelicans are the world's rarest pelicans
 After our morning adventure, we had our longest and steepest ride - 72 km with almost a kilometer uphill. We also had a lot of rain, though it mostly came when we were huff-puffing uphill so we could stay warm. We saw some amazing views at the crests and bicycled through an ancient chestnut forest near the coast.
Darrell riding through the chestnut forest
We crested the pass - coming within meters of Albania at the top - and then finished up with a downhill to Ulcinj - one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic coast. For those of us with a weak understanding of European history, this edited bit from Wikipedia may give us some excuse: Ulcinj was founded in 5th century BC, was captured by the Romans in 163 BC from the Illyrians, became part of the Byzantine Empire when the Roman Empire was divided and was under South Slavic rule for a few centuries. In 1405 it became part of the Republic of Venice and in 1571 part of the Ottoman Empire. The fun doesn't end there but I don't want to leave you dizzy. Do note that their latest independence didn't come until 2006...

Highlander dress - Ulcinj castle museum

It was in the Ulcinj castle museum that I first became obsessed with this highlander dress. It is heavy wool but I'd love to recreate it as a lighter weight skirt.
Highlander dress - Tirana History Museum

From Ulcinj we headed towards Shkoder, Albania - near the south end of the Lake Skadar. Darrell got settled in to work in our hotel, and I biked to Rozafa Castle high on the hill with great views all around. We had a great trip cycling in Montenegro and leave you with the view and some great advice!
View from Rozafa Castle
  


Monday, May 20, 2019

Mostar Musings

Darrell and I flew from Athens to Dubrovnik, Croatia on April 20th and found our Airbnb in nearby Gruž with an amazing view over the harbor. Dubrovnik itself is to the south (left of photo) and you can read about our earlier adventures in that amazing UNESCO Heritage city here.
View from our Airbnb in Gruz!
The next morning I was off on a tour bus with a driver, guide, and 22 others to visit Kravica Waterfalls and the UNESCO Heritage city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We took the beautiful coastal road north and made three border crossings because Bosnia and Herzegovina has a short strip of land on the Adriatic Sea that we crossed before we went back into Croatia and then back into Bosnia and Herzegovina further inland. You may need a current map to see this puzzle!
The beautiful Kravica Waterfalla in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mostar is named after the medieval bridge keepers (mostari) who guarded the Stari Most (Old Bridge) over the river. This stone bridge, replacing an earlier wooden bridge, was built by the Ottomons in 1566 and lasted millenia until it was destroyed in 1993 during the Croat-Bosniak War. Thankfully, it was rebuilt after the war, using many of the original stones that had sunk into the river after its destruction.

The spectacular rebuilt Mostar Bridge
Time-worn stones on the bridge walkway
Wade Goddard, a photojournalist from New Zealand, wrote this about September 1994: "The encirclement and bombardment of east Mostar was well into its fourth month, when I climbed out of the back of a Spanish armed transporter in the centre of the enclave. East Mostar was what I imagined the Warsaw Ghetto might have been like; the destruction, hunger, misery and squalor were my first observations. After spending more time there, I came to realise the resilience, determination and pride of the population." Three of his photographs are below. Bottom left shows the view after the bridge was destroyed.
    Photographs from Wade Goddard's exhibit "Enclave" in Mostar
When I returned, Darrell and I ate a salad together on the patio overlooking the harbor. Darrell had worked all day on his significant contributions to the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, while I had been immersed in new scenery and a continuous reminder of why I travel - witnessing people, no matter their religion or culture or color, loving their children and hoping for a peaceful future.