CROATIA TRIP - DAY 17 - MONTENEGRO

Today we go to Montenegro. I'm so excited! I've been drawn to this little country for as long as I can remember, to stories of tall, handsome men who will kill their neighbor for honor; the towering peaks and sparkling streams; and all the myth and legend surrounding it. Montenegran soldiers were partly responsible for the Siege of Dubrovnik in 1991-1992, so relations between the two countries are not the best. We avoided talking politics. We are going on an organized bus tour out of Dubrovnik.

Our first stop is Kotor, a walled city on the Bay of Kotor. Then the bus heads up famous windy road, the Ladder of Cattaro over the mountain the Cetinje, which is the historical (but no longer) capital of the country. On the way we stop for lunch at a mountain rest stop for sandwiches of locally cured ham and Montenegran beer. Cetinje doesn't have the charm I had hoped for, but still interesting. Our final stop was Budva, a port city they are trying to develop as a touist center.

Montenegro gained independence from Serbia within the last year, so there are many changes now and in the future. If you want to read more, I recommend Starling Lawrence's Montenegro: a novel (London: Transworld, 1998); Zorka Milich's A strangers supper: an oral history of centenarian women in Montenegro (Prentice Hall, 1995); Edith Durham's Through the lands of the Serbs (1904); or Milovan Djilas' Land without justice (Harcourt, Brace, 1958). The new James Bond film, Casino Royale, is set in Montenegrom (but actually filmed in the Czech Republic.)