An early start today. Breakfast 6.30am, picked up 7:30am by Baldo and on our way to Montenegro.
During the trip we were given a bit of information about Croatia and Montenegro.
• In Croatia everyone refers to the Covid-19 pandemic as “ the corona”.
• Montenegro has a population of about 640,000 people.
• The Croatia/ Montenegro border is about 5km wide as the crow flies, and maybe 15km by foot due to all the mountains and deep valleys.
• Montenegro has elections due on 10 June, it will set the path for the nation as to whether it forges closer relations with either the EU or Russia.
• Locals of Montenegro say it has two Capital cities, the official one, Podgorica and Kotor.
• Montenegro covers about 13,000 sq km, it is shaped almost like a rectangle, and has a longest length of about 200km
• Montenegro has three main religions- Orthodox, Catholic and Islam.
• The name Montenegro means Black Mountain.
• The Port of Montenegro used to be home to many super Yachts owned by Russian Oligarchs, but they all disappeared the night before, the day, the EU was going to seize them.
We crossed the border at about 8:20am. Yay, we got our passports stamped, twice. Croatia and Montenegro.
Local knowledge always wins, the queue of cars and trucks at the border was going nowhere, but our driver recognised that the cars in front were tourists. And were queued in the truck lane, so he overtook everyone and went to the head of the car queue.
The border with Croatia is 5km long as the crow flies, much longer up and down the hills.
We had no phone service in Montenegro.
We passed a town called Igalo (means beach) it has/had the most famous beach in old Yugoslavia. The beach is covered in mud. People covered themselves in the mud and let it dry. Apparently it was good for skin conditions.
We past Zeleninka a small town with 3 medieval castles. One built by each invading country, Turkey, Italy and Spain. It is a growing tourist destination called the City of stairs.
We stopped at a vantage point to look over the water to a small church in the middle of the waterway. It is called Our lady of the Rock, and commenced building in 1452 and took 200 years to complete.
Next we stopped at a small medieval town, Perast, where you can get boats out to Our lady of the Rock. 
We chose not to go out there, but instead had a stroll through the village. It was really interesting seeing the mix of all the old buildings, most were 14th century. We stopped for a bit, I had a coffee and we took time to look over the water and take in the village. 
We met our driver on the southern side of the village and headed to Kotor.
We got to the Old City of Kotor, a UNESCO listed site, around 10:25am and met our guide Ivan. He had lived in the city for all his 60+ years, he was very knowledgeable.
The first thing you notice in Kotor is the parking issues, a new hotel is being built on the site of what had been a 300+ car park.
The next thing is the walls of the Old Town.
The walls of the town are 4.5km long and up to 20m high, an imposing structure. The walls were commenced construction over 1000 years ago. The walls once used to go up into the mountains behind the city, you can still see some remnants today. The Old Town once had 30 churches within its walls, the largest of which was funded by the community, many smaller churches were built by the wealthy of the time. The Cathedral in the Town is the largest in Montenegro, and is named after the patron saint of the town, Saint Tryphon. There are also a chapel and a church built on the mountain slope and top of the mountains behind the city. The mountains are called the Saint Giovanni Mountains. These are often visited on special days. There are about 450 steps to the chapel and almost 1400 steps to the church. The Old Town had approximately 300 buildings within it and a medieval population of 4 to 5,000. Now during the winter it has appellation of 400.
An earthquake in 1667 damaged much of the Town, you can still see the effects of the earthquake today, the clock tower is leaning amongst other things. The town was rebuilt using the original old stones, or when they couldn’t be used, stone was quarried from the same source as the original stones used in building the town.
There are 4 squares around the town, each called by what was sold in them – Flour, Milk, Vegetables and Wood. More recent times has seen a small courtyard named Cat Square, due to the number of cats there, the city also has a new cat museum.
There were no cruise ships in Port today, so there was no crowd, which we were thankful for.
The buildings are all very well preserved and maintained, and the streets are paved, and were from the original town beginnings. We loved walking around the town getting a sense of the history and life it has had.
Our tour finished at 12:15pm, I’m sure Ivan could have talked for hours more. We drove to a restaurant on the water zone At Tramontana Beach Bar, where we had lunch taking in the sights. Deb had Octopus, it was deliciously char flavoured and was very tender. I should have ordered something seafood, but instead I had a tough pork meal!
After lunch we drove to Zeleninka and had a walk through one of the old castle’s, it was a restored ruin, and then walked down the hill and met our driver in a square where we had a nice cool drink. It was very relaxed here, more locals than tourists.
Then we headed up the hill to the Savina Winery. We had a taste of three of their wines, a Rose, a Chardonnay and a Merlot. Each of them was very tasty, by far the best wine we have sampled this holiday. We were served many snacks along with the tasting, the local produce was delicious. We also got a quick tour through some vines and their wine making facilities. All interesting.
We left there around 4.15pm and drove back to Dubrovnik, arriving at our hotel around 5:45pm. We had a very good run back, no border hold ups and little traffic.
