Postage Stamp Sized Stari Grad
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2006
1
66
120
Trip End
Sep 02, 2008
Kotor,
Serbia and Montenegro
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Kotor is renouned for being situated on the longest fjord in Europe and for its very small old city. We ignored a fellow who approached us, offering a private room, because we were aiming for the "good deal" in our guidebook. We almost got lost due to a mislabelled map but Kotor's old city has only about fifteen streets.
When we finally found the Hotel R-, the "good deal" (25 Euro for a double, the quotes are from our conversation while looking in the book). and heard their updated price list, Bro let some steam go. Their list price went from E 25 for a double room to E 40 in mere months. Is it perhaps an inevitable curse of the Hotel when it is newly listed in a guidebook for tourists?
There was some cursing and gnashing of teeth.
So it's probably a good thing that this guidebook doesn't have ears. It might not want to continue along with me if it did. I haven't done a proper survey of my own work, but I write and think about my guidebook enough that it may as well be a real companion that we're travelling along with. He's got some good advice, but he's also just as prone to faults as the next guy. I take advice with a seasoning of salt, but when I hear false information I still get annoyed.
On the other hand, I could find my own way like when I went through Slovakia or Turkey (the first time in '04) but both of those experiences were a lot tougher than anything else I've done (with the exception of Egypt)... back to the narrative.
They told us that the price has always been 40 Euro. I didn't believe this, and Bro was particularly unwilling to put up with such price deviation. After an excrutiating trip from Tirana, that saw us walk four kilometers, ride a bus, then a van, a walk across a border, then a taxi and finally another bus before getting lost (albeit for only three minutes) in a postage stamp city after dark. We've heard reports that travelling in Sub Sahran Africa is more complicated but it felt like this had to come close. Our one solace was in an Albanian Catholic named Nicola, who spoke German with me on the bus from Tirana to Skodra. He found us the van without too much time lost, in a city otherwise devoid of information for tourists. I was in Albania, after all.
This was one nice turn among many other turns. The road from Podgorica (Montenegro's capital) to Kotor is rife with switchbacks. It doesn't leave one disposed to find out that the price of one's accomodation has risen by sixty percent. It was either Bro's indignation or the fact that we were the only guests interested in staying the night at the hotel that got us a better price. They let us have the best room for E 30. Yet their demeanour suggested that we were really not all that welcome.
We walked around town after dinner and found that Kotor's old city is something of a party town. The young and fashion conscious were on a night out. Tall boots are "in" here, as are big belts. It also seemed that Kotorians are also pretty tall. I am about 6'2" and I felt only average sized.
We did an entire tour of the city trying to find somewhere to use the internet and potentially a phone: it was our sister's 18th and we wanted to call, but no where could be found. We did find a computer in a restaurant, but most ironic of all was that the internet cafe listed in our guidebook wasn't interested in our business. "No internet."
The kids were playing World of Warcraft.
Our bedtime wasn't early but the rest of the city wasn't ready for bed. Maybe it is that the city is made entirely of limestone and the music really echoes. Or else it was just turned up really loud. Kotor was getting down.
* * *
Before we had breakfast the next morning, we climbed up to the castle-ruin on the hill above Kotor. In the olden days, it was a pirate lair. The walls rise right up the side of the hill and I learned in the city's itsy bitsy museum that the castle is 641 meters above sea level. The castle is pretty wrecked although some repair work has been attempted over the years. There were goats everywhere too, but I'll withold the goat jokes.
After less than 24 hours in the country (I ought to mention that Montenegro is now independent from Serbia), we had had our fill. Finding out that they wanted six euros for a simple backpack patch was the last straw. Our camels backs were broken. We needed a bus out.
We caught the three pm bus to Dubrovnik. That may have been the best part of the visit to this country. Some sketchy Ireman was telling a Norwegian couple (they must have come to see the fjord) about land deals in Montenegro, swearing that in five years the value of everything will double. "Could be the chance of a lifetime!" The narrator was an enthuastic sort with a talent for suggestion. He was probably just a taxi driver back home but he did make life sound interesting. But if he was really a taxi driver... then he was probably just working on some other scam!
