Friday, September 8, 2017

Herceg Novi, Montenegro

Friday, September 8, 2017

When I woke up this morning and saw it pouring rain on my balcony and heavy fog in the mountains, I thought today would be a total classroom day. But our guides turned lemons into lemonade and we had a great day.

We had a lecture scheduled for 4 pm which they smartly changed to 9 am. Our teacher was a delightful woman named Sandra who led us through nearly two thousand years of Montenegran history in a succinct and informative manner.

Just some highlights:   Montenegro (which means "black mountain") is slightly smaller than Connecticut and has only about 650,000 people. The vast majority are Orthodox Christians, followed by Muslims and a small percentage of Catholics. There are no Protestants in the Balkans except those who move in from other places.

About 70% of the country is mountainous and rocky, which makes farming difficult. Tourism is its major economy.  

From 1420-1797, the coastal areas were ruled by Venetians and the Ottomans until the 19th century. Then the Austro-Hungarian empire ruled from 1814-1918 when it became part of Yugoslavia. After the Balkan War in the 90's, it was dominated by Serbia until declaring independence, peacefully, in 2006.

After the lecture, we took a bus to Herceg Novi where we walked through the Old Town. We saw the iconic clock tower (doesn't every European city have one?).


Then we passed another square which featured a Greek Orthodox Church from the late 1800s.

Near the coast we visited a Catholic Church. 

Across from the church were great views of the Bay.


We continued our walk down a number of stairs to the shoreline where we had a delicious lunch at Konoba Feral. (I'm sure Feral means something different here.) We had 3 dishes featuring calamari, shrimp and octopus.

On the shoreline is Fort Mare Fortress with people enjoying the water below.


After lunch the sky had cleared and the sun came out so we boarded a boat to tour the Bay. We were treated to great views of the coastline. It is so hard to capture it in a photo. What is stunning is how these mountains seem to come down right behind the city.



Following the boat ride, we had free time. I chose to walk back up the stairs to visit Kanli Kula ("bloody tower"), which was a former prison during Turkish rule. 

The climb was worth it for the views. The fortress is used to host musical events, and they were preparing for one while I was there.

Then I walked the 2 miles back to our hotel along the beautiful coastal promenade. 

Tonight we had dinner at the hotel and I spent time afterward chatting with people in our group.



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