As I said before, Montenegro is considered the newest country in the world. It was formed after the break-up of Yugoslavia. It has a population of about 625,000 with a very diverse cultural heritage. It was not, and still isn’t, a particularly advanced nation in the European context. There’s a lot of farming and people seem to live simple lives with a lot of tradition woven through them.
So it’s interesting to see how it has approached opening up to visitors.
Our four stops in Montenegro represent the good and the bad of four different approaches to the influx of tourists. As I said in the last blog, Budva took the mass-tourism route leveraging it’s little Venetian walled old town. On top of that (figuratively-speaking) it has added resort-style hotels, discos, bus tours etc. which give it a very cosmopolitan atmosphere without being particularly Montenegrin in any strong sense.
Bigova Marina
Bigova, our second stop, took a very different approach. It’s no more than ten miles from Budva (by land or sea) but it could be in a different world. The little hamlet has only about 70 permanent residents but this grows to about 1000 in the summer. The guy who took us over to the restaurant from our mooring said everything to the left of the restaurant was for tourists and everything to the right was where locals lived. The clan system is alive and well - all 70 locals have the same surname! Our ferryman said he could make more money in Budva, but why would he leave? The restaurant has laid the moorings for about 15 boats and they’d like you to eat at their restaurant but aren’t really adamant about that. We enjoyed their locally caught calamari and octopus as the sun went down over the bay..
Kotor has another approach. Its Venetian walled town (larger than Budva) is one of the pearls of the Adriatic with a fortress high on the mountain behind it. The location is spectacular in the only fjord in the southern part of Europe. (it’s not really a fjord, but it really looks like one.)
Meredith, Kotor is famous for its CATS (the animals not the boats). So this one's for you .....
The drama of our week in Montenegro came as we arrived in Kotor. The weather here has been what the forecasters call “unsettled”. This means hot days interspersed with cold days or rainy days and fairly frequent thunderstorms. This tends to mean a fairly energetic wind pattern.
That’s what we had when we tried to park in Kotor - 20 knots of wind more or less blowing us straight onto the quay as we tried to park. The important phrase here to keep an eye on is “more or less”.
The more attentive of you will recall that True Colors is very susceptible to any hint of a cross-wind when she’s backing up. This is usually counteracted by accelerating a bit to maintain control of the boat. If you do this when the wind is behind you “helping”, the real question is “How do you stop,?”
We were doing well slowing down nicely and about 10 feet out from the dock when that little component of the wind that was less behind us than the others took over. True Colors turned gently sideways and drifted nicely alongside onto the quay. In some ways we were lucky that there was enough space to do this but in others if there had been boats adjacent to us this never would have happened.
As we were coming to terms with the issue and trying to think how it could be solved, three charter skippers from adjacent boats leapt on board and expertly manhandled True Colors into her proper orientation. A very professional maneuver for which we were very grateful and more than a little impressed. Fortunately no damage was done to us or any of the adjacent boats.
Although it has a relatively tiny quay, Kotor does its best to encourage visits from cruise ships - very large cruise ships (hopefully not parked by someone like me). The effect is much the same as that in Venice: a city block parks next to and dwarfs the historic buildings. The scale is wrong; nothing feels right. Flocks of passengers (up to three thousand at a time) spend only four or five hours in the place and then go back to the boat in time for dinner and an overnight voyage to their next port.
Our favorite Lebanese restaurant in Montenegro
Finally, there is Porto Montenegro. This is a former naval base that has been completely re-designed and built as a five-star luxury resort. They may have nailed it. This is the only place I have ever seen a Rolex shop - not a shop that sells Rolex watches but a shop that ONLY sells Rolex watches. The same goes for the Veuve Clicquot shop next door - only one brand of Champagne?!? I guess that these are the kind of things that tempt you to step off your super-yacht and visit planet Earth.
I worry that the place and the normal local people get lost in this equation and that the gulf between “haves” ad “have-nots” is rapidly widening everyday, everywhere.
We will set out tomorrow for Croatia.