We reached my 40th country the year of my 30th birthday! And I have visited all of them since I was 20 when I left the country for the first time while participating in the Baltic travel study program in January 2005 with Furman University. What an amazing decade it has been!
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| twisty turny roads between Sarajevo and Kotor |
Today we drove from Sarajevo, Bosnia to Koror, Montenegro and we agreed to take the more scenic route of our two choices so we could see the countryside between the two locations. It was a pretty drive - full of lots of lush plants and trees, lots of rolling mountains, mysterious mist that creeps around the mountains and rises }}sleepily from the water, beautiful gorges and my favorite - a river that is a truly unique color.
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| Welcome to Montenegro! My 40th Country! |
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| All Hail Jacques the Peacock! |
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| Montenegro countryside - a beautiful lake on the edge of a dam |
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| Daddy and Hannah on Father's Day |
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| The gorgeous dam - it was so high it was just breathtaking...and breathtaking in a scary way too - I held Hannah tight! |
We've seen some interesting countryside as well and had cows and absolutely massive (think or three combined dumptrucks) size boulders blocking a portion of the road. It was a tough drive too - lots of narrow winding roads which are not much fun for those prone to carsickness. But thankfully it smoothed out the last two hours and made it much more enjoyable. The SUVish car we got was just passably big enough, so it has been a tight fit, but not a miserable one and today really is the longest travel day we will have, so all in all, not too bad! It was also the first time I have drive across a border in Europe that had the double passport control in years (the borderless EU Schengen area really cut down on all that). So we had to show our passports to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina and show them again to enter Montenegro.
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| Tom snapping away |
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| Meredith enjoying the view of the islands on the edge of the bay of Kotor (the city of Kotor is around the mountain on the left in this picture) |
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| Umm... |
We anticipated having a tricky time finding our apartment once we arrived, and it was tricky, but doable. The greatest challenge was trying to turn the car around (mid size SUV) in a one lane road that was actually two, with a sheer drop off into...the lake. No guard rails to buffer. Once we drove up the incredibly steep hill to our apartment we were good to go! Someone gave us a quick tour of the apartment and handed us the keys. The apartment is pretty basic. Probably like a two star hotel...but it is clean and safe, has a fantastic view of Kotor and the fjord, and is within walking distance of old town (a long walk, but possible).
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| Meredith enjoying the view |
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| dinner in Kotor |
We had pushed ourselves to get there, stopping only for a few beautiful panoramic views and to feed/change a fussy Hannah and now we were all ravenous, so off to old town we went! We ate a very late lunch/early dinner in the main square, stopped by the grocery store, and made it home to enjoy an enchanting view of the city beautifully lit up and reflecting off the water. We had survived the longest drive of the trip, thought old town looked like a lot of fun, and were excited to hike the city walls the next day!
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| outside the city walls of Kotor with my cutie! |
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| Kotor at night! The medieval city walls are beautifully lit at night! |
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