Adriatic Coast sailing

Hello from Montenegro 🇲🇪

I have spent the last 7 days on a 15.9 metre sail boat cruising down the Adriatic coast. And it has been glorious.... mostly......

The boat itself is 5 (2 person) bedrooms and 3 baths, for 9 of us on board. While it is a decent size overall, the sleeping quarters are pretty cramped. There are two bunkbed rooms and three double bed rooms. Naturally, the doubles went to the couple, the mother/daughter and the skipper, so I ended up in a bunkbed room. The top bunk is squishy, to say the least, and as I am one of the smaller people on board, I had to put my hand up to take it (some people would not physically fit). While I did my best to channel my inner KK and enjoy the novelty of a top bunk, it was a bit too ‘coffin like’ for my liking. I’ve been reminded numerous times this week by the fact that I am quite claustrophobic.

Sleeping arrangements aside, the boat had everything we needed and was pretty well equipped. While it is a sail boat, we actually didn’t do that much real sailing, which is fine with me. I’m not here to tack and jibe - I’m here to lie in the sun and drink wine. Generally, we would do brekky either on the boat or in town, lunch on the boat, and dinner in town.  On the first day, the skipper suggested doing a food kitty (everyone put money in), so that one or two people could do the grocery shop and then we had food for the boat. While this seemed like a good idea (in theory), we had two vegans, one semi-vegan, and one person who didn’t eat wheat or dairy. We sorted it out and it was fine, but these are the joys of travelling with random people.

The group was a real mixed bag. There was a family from the UK (being parents, grown (23 year old) daughter, and uncle), a couple from Sydney, a solo female traveller from the UK, and me. So it wasn’t the exact mix I was hoping for, but on the whole everyone was pretty decent and got along well.  Every group trip always has one person who is a bit of a weirdo and annoys everyone - on this trip it wasdefinitely the uncle. He was just terribly obnoxious and extremely self-serving. He wasn’t malicious in this, he was just ignorant to people around him and the fact that what he was doing might be annoying.  Also, he did nothing but eat, drink and sleep. I mean, that’s really what I was aiming to do too, but I’d help with the dishes or do the shopping, or read a book. He literally slept, came out when we had made lunch, wet back to sleep, came out when it was pre-dinner drinks, etc. As I was writing this (with my headphones in, watching the sunset, drinking a G&T) he interrupted me three times, with mundane questions. Anyway, it was fine as it was just a few days. The mum and daughter were ragging on him as well - clearly it was dad who let him come along....

We spent most of the nights in Montenegrin waters. Montenegro is just a stunning country. If I had to choose one word to describe it, I would say “green”; green trees, green water, green shrubbery, etc. Most of the days consisted of sailing between ports, with a snorkeling or swimming break, and then exploring the towns upon arrival. Every place we went had an “old town”, which is slang for “very old walled city, now turned into cute tourist destination.” Some were nicer than others - the level of niceness was always correlated with how touristy the town was. With that said, it was still nice to get off the boat and wander around the little streets and stop for a drink at the local bars.

Kotor and the surrounding area was my favourite place we stopped in Montenegro. The scenery coming into the bay was pretty epic, and there was a fair bit to do in the area. One morning I climbed 1200 steps to a fort, which had the most amazing views of the bay and city. We also did a tour/day trip that afternoon which turned out to be a real highlight. We had pretty much no information going in to it; we just knew it had something to do with driving around, a national park, and a prosciutto and grappa tasting. It turned out to be excellent - I actually think going in blind made it better because everywhere we stopped exceeded our expectations 10 fold. 

We first stopped in a little town which was the former capital of Montenegro (before the First World War - after which it lost its independence and became part of Yugoslavia). Since then, this town has slowly deteriorated, and now there isn’t much left, other than a two block city centre and a lot of deserted grand old buildings and former embassies. It was interesting, but we had more time than needed, so we had a drink in the sun, which is just my kind of activity. Also, it was cheap - €2.20 for a small bottle of pretty decent wine!

After we went to the national park and were told we were going to need to walk up 500 steps, which is fine, but again, no context going in as to what we would see. We drove up to the top of a mountain, winding our way around every curve. When we got to the top (and up the steps) it was absolutely spectacular. 360 degree views of pretty much the entire country, including the capital city (fun trivia fact - it’s Podgorica - which I also did not know until today).  We could also see Albania and Bosnia.

After that little surprise, we drove to the small village of Konntu, where they make prosciutto, cheese, grappa and a local wine. We stopped at a cute little house, with a grape vine canapé, and coke bottle upon bottle of unmarked home made liquor and wine. It turned out it was the cousin of the guy who ran the tour company, who essentially has you into his garden for a meat, cheese and liquor tasting. It was all delicious. The region claims to make the second best prosciutto in the world (after Spain). I quite like that claim as people would disagree if they said ‘best in the world’. However hearing ‘second best’ seems about right. Im not sure what the measurement scale is for the ‘best prosciutto’, but I can confirm, it was some of the best I have had.  Speaking of which, the food here has been quite good. Lots of seafood, cured meats and cheese. My diet has been pretty simple - bread, cheese, cured meat, tomatoes, mussels, prawns, wine and gin (not all together at once). Add in a few eggs and the occasional scoop of gelato and I have described everything I’ve eaten all week.

Anyway, our final stop of the day trip was a view point overlooking the bay of Kotor and surrounds for sunset. And it was, again, spectacular (I need a different adjective....). Limestone cliffs, ocean, and orange roofs. It almost feels like what I think parts of Norway would be like. But hot. We also stopped at a little cliff side bar which would have to be one of the most breathtaking bars in the world. How this place isn’t plastered all over Instagram yet, I’m not sure. Maybe because it’s hard to get to and you would need a 0.00 designated driver...... the road down back to Kotor is hair raising, to say the least. 25 steeeeep switchbacks (single lane) with sheer cliff side drop offs at each turn. Our guide said that sometimes buses go up with all the cruise ship passengers and it can get pretty hairy when two come together at the same part.

Another good activity we did was in the port town of Tivat. This is where the super yachts park, as they are too big for some of the smaller ports. There is a brand new port there with a whole fancy village built around it. Clearly it’s catering to the super yacht clientele because the prices in the boutiques were crazy. So we left the fake port village and went for a local dinner at a local family house. Twice a week they have groups over, I guess for some extra income and to share knowledge and history of Montenegro. It was €30 for all we could eat and drink, and it was a fun night. It was all the local staples (meat, cheese, tomatoes, grappa, wine, etc) plus slow cooked beef and potatoes. 

We also spent one night in Budva, which is the so called party capital of the region. Apparently one of Europe’s largest night clubs is there. I could not tell you a thing about it though, as I was nicely tucked into my bed at 9pm, after what was a roller coaster of a day. The morning started well in Herceg Novi - I went for a run, and then had a nice brunch in a sunny square in the old town. When we got on the boat, we could see some storm clouds in the distance, but we figured we might just get some rain. Fast forward 60 minutes, and it was carnage. As it turns out, getting caught in a huge storm on a sail boat is not fun.  Because we were close to the coast the waves would bounce back, giving a washing machine effect.  We were rocking and rolling everywhere. The group could be easily divided into two groups - the ‘vomiters’ and the ‘anxious’. Those who got sick, were too ill to worry about anything else and reverted to bed or to throwing up in the bin, while those not ill got to spend 90 minutes either getting tossed around the cabin trying to help the sick, or getting soaked to the core on deck. I fell into the latter group - I luckily don’t get seasick but I did not enjoy 90 minutes of freezing cold, soaking wet bumping around (I had to stay outside. See previous comment re: claustrophobia).

Montenegro has been wonderfully cheap. Prices in the old towns tend to be more, however it’s still very reasonable. Wine and beer in particular are cheap. It’s very easy to have a nice-ish dinner and half a litre of wine for under €20. Outside the old towns it’s even cheaper. Two of us had breakfast one morning - two full size breakfasts (eggs, toast, bacon, feta and tomato), a coffee, and a tea, and it was €10. In a lot of places wine was under €3 for a glass or small bottle.

Montenegro has really exceeded my expectations. It’s cheap. It’s BEAUTIFUL. The weather is glorious (minus the odd freak thunderstorm). It has history, and a cultural identity. My one complaint, is that I can’t say the people are lovely. Of course, that’s not a blanket statement - some people were fabulous (like our tour guide in Kotor, the family in Tivat, etc), but the day to day interactions you have at the grocery store, restaurant, etc. are not always the best.  Three examples:

• We went to a grocery store in Herceg Novi, but messed up the bagging/weighing system for vegetables, because it was not really clear. The cashier acted like the world was ending. Actually, that’s an understatement. I’ve never seen such an over the top dramatic reaction to anything in my life. Ok, roll your eyes at us if you need to (I would I’m sure!), but far out! We were yelled at, eye rolled, shoved out of the way, angry sighed, cursed, and laughed at with the customers in the line behind us. 

• Three people on my boat took a bus at one stage (separately). They all asked the different drivers to let them know where the stop was so that they could get off. In all three instances, the driver didn’t say a word and when they all realised the drivers just told them ‘not my problem, you walk’.  

• I went to a random local gym in Budva. It was wonderfully awful; neon green and black and straight out of 1995. On my way I walked through a local neighbourhood with a bakery and fruit/veggie stand. I stopped on the way back to buy a container of fresh raspberries (for €1 I’ll add). As the cashier was putting them in a bag, she dropped it on the ground and they all spilled out. So obviously that was my fault and she yelled at me in Montenegrin. And then tried to sell me the 1/3rd full container for the full price.

So that’s about it for the boat trip. If you made it this far, well done. We had one last dinner in Bosnia and Hercegovina, which can be reached in just 30 minutes from Dubrovnik. Decided since most of us had already spent time in Dubrovnik that it would be fun to tick another country off the list and see if there was any noticeable difference. There wasn’t, but dinner was really tasty and very cheap. Apparently a lot of people live across the border and work in Dubrovnik because the wages are about 3.5x higher in Dubrovnik and rent is significantly cheaper in Bosnia and Hercegovina.

I’m on my way to Vienna now, the Budapest, so my next post will be after that I think.