Steep Peaks and Gorges of Montenegro

We’re home, got back on July 4th, but I have two more posts I want to write to finish off the Balkans Journal.

After our days in Kotor on the Montenegro coast, we headed north into the rugged mountains around Zabljak (“Zah-block”).  Zabljak itself isn’t all that attractive, a ski-resort feeling place with cabins and chalets dotting the various hillsides.  But the drive up was pretty, as we skirted several verdant valleys like this one:


We also tripped upon an Roman bridge:

We had reserved an AirBnB (as usual), which was a little hard to find, given the somewhat vague directions.  And the place itself was REALLY funky ... and cold.  It had two portable radiators, which we turned on high as soon as we arrived; we also turned on the stove and left the door open (we used to do this at our cabin to warm it up when we arrived in the winter).  

It also had a little wood fireplace, so we thought we’d also try to use it to warm the place up.  Trouble was that it wasn’t clear how to fire it up, so we called our host who called her “maid” to come over and help us figure it out.  That led to a very weird encounter!  The maid arrived - she was quite nice, but spoke no English (and our Serbs-Croation-Montenegrin was likewise nil).  Through hand-waving, she let us know she didn’t know how to use the fireplace, but she brought down a blanket from upstairs to cover our legs while we hung out.  Then this other person arrives, also speaking no English, but says many things adamently with words and waving hands.  He seemed to be upset about our use of the stove to help warm the place, called our host, who got on the phone to tell us, basically, we shouldn’t have the stove and the radiator on at the same time, as they were on the same circuit.  Meanwhile, the maid, for some inexplicable reason, sat down and took off her coat, as if she was staying for a long visit. They both kept talking to us as if we could understand them, and we tried to reassure them we wouldn’t burn the place down.  Eventually they left, and eventually the place warmed up.

The weather was unseasonably cold and wet while we were in Zabljak, so we didn’t get to explore as much as we would have liked.  But we did do a one-hour raft trip on the Tara River, in its canyon that is the deepest in Europe and second deepest in the world after the Grand Canyon.  As they’d had a lot of recent rain, the river was running much higher and faster than usual, so it turned out to be an exciting hour.

A panoramic view of the Tara River Gorge with the famous Durdevica Bridge on the right.

On our last day in Montenegro, we drove from Zabljak to the airport at Podgorica for our flight to Belgrade, the last stop on our trip.  The drive traversed two incredibly beautiful mountain ranges and river gorges, stunning landscapes.

And we had our last Montenegrin lunch near this humongous bridge construction project, part of a highway the Chinese are building from Serbia to the coast of Montenegro.

Next: Belgrade.

The Norway of Montenegro? The Kotor Fjord

We took a taxi from Shkoder, across the border into Montenegro, and on to the airport at Podgorica.  There we bid our friend Robin and Bill good travels as they went on to Belgrade and a quick tour of Serbia (we follow those footsteps tomorrow) and we rented a car and drove north to Kotor.

We noticed right away that roads, infrastructure in general, are in much better shape in Montenegro than Albania.  Highways are wide enough for two, even three lanes of traffic and hotel and housing  construction seems ubiquitous.  Our first stop was on the northern edge of Lake Shkoder (the southern end is in Albania) for a deliscious lunch of baked fish.

The road to Kotor winds around and through steep mountains and beautiful bays.  One tunnel was at least 4 kilometers long (we’ve driven through 12-15 tunnels in this lowish income country - how did we in Seattle agonize and fret over one little tunnel for the past decade!).

Kotor is a fairly touristy town, with the old town surrounded by a mostly intact ancient wall and mote and towered over by a fort and wall that edge up an extraordinarily steep mountainside.  Why they feared an invasion from above, we’ll never know; hard to imagine any army risking that vertical barrier.

The area is popular for local and European holiday-goers, as well as the almost daily cruise ships (of various types) who’s cargo inundated the old city.

We stayed at an AirBnB ostensibly hosted by a young woman but, in reality, by her father, Mr. Matkovic (I forget his first name).  He was born in the old city of Kotor, and the old stone house in front of the somewhat newer structure whose “penthouse” we stayed in, was his wife’s grandfather’s. It- and the two adjacent houses were built around 400 years ago.  During the “communist time,” around 1980, MNr. Matkovic got concerned that the empty lot behind the old stone house would be prey for some party hack who wanted to build somewhere, so he built the “new” house to ward off any such intrusion.  It was a weird building, and our studio was cramped.  But we did have a tiny balcony that looked out to the bay, which - being right across the street - we same in several times.

We drove around much of this butterfly-shaped bay, walked an ancient salt plan that had provided locals their main income as far back the the mid-1300’s, and had a pair of massages that were moderately helpful (to Kate) and worthless (to Aaron).  But the highlight of our stay in Kotor was a drive up the serpentine road that snaked around 25 hairpin turns (they were numbered) and provided awesome views of the whole area.

That’s Kotor down there.   

The destination of the drive was Mt. Lovcen, where a popularly elected bishop and prince, Njegos, who ruled Montenegro in the first half of the 1800s, is buried.  We started at sea level and ended a mile high in just over 20 kilometers.  The mausoleum took 5 years to build and provides stunning views of the surrounding mountains and the old capital of Cetinje, once you climb the 461 steps from the parking area.

That’s Cetinje behind us.

The rock formations on Mt. Lovcen are a bit of a moonscape.

The mausoleum was clearly a feat of construction, involving endless tons of granite, including the 28 ton block used to carve the bishop-prince’s image (that’s Montenegro’s symbol behind him, an eagle with outstretched wings):

... and the more modest 8-ton blocks used to carve the figures at the entry way:

We had a great time in Kotor, but have since moved on to the cold and rainy mountains of Durmitor National Park.  More on that in the next post.

City of a Thousand Windows

Berat was a highlight during our time in Albania, a picturesque 2500 year old city known for its houses seemingly stacked one on top of another in two hillside neighborhoods - Gorica and Mangalem - on opposite sides of the Osum River.  We were told that these two areas were where the Ottomans put all the Christians to live when the former conquered the area in 1385.

The weather was quite volatile while we were there ... in fact, the drive to Berat from the coast was quite hairy at times ... here’s Bill driving through a deluged road:

 The weather did, however, give us some dramatic scenes.

We stayed inside the Berat castle walls in this AirBnB guesthouse.

It was a great location, away from the crowds in the city and made it easy to wander the castle’s  cobbled streets and see some of what we were told were 42 churches inside the walls.

The city, itself, was a pretty bustling place with an attractive pedestrian mall where families with children, old men, and pods of teenagers and young adults strolled, drank coffee, and smoked cigarettes.

We checked out the three mosques - two of which were under repair - and one Catholic Church, as well as a very nice ethnographic museum that presented traditional family and commercial life of the region.

We also did a little wine tasting at a winery a little out of town.  It was run by two brothers who grandfather had made wine before the advent of the Hoxha dictatorship.   His vineyard was confiscated by the government, but wine-making continued during that regime, and when the brothers had a chance to buy some land and plant some vines, they did so.  The grapes they use are nearly all Albanian varieties, and the wine was pretty good.

But one of the best things about our time in Berat was the hotel and restaurant next door to our guesthouse, Klea.  We had deliscious meals and yummy cappuccinos there and developed a great relationship with the young man who greeted and served us each time (as well as his mother, the cook).

Albania’s nightmares ... seem over

There was a time in my early years when I was somewhat fascinated with Albania, its hyper-closed society with odd-looking names, like “Hoxha,” its longtime dictator (pronounced “hoe-ja”).  But it was a brutal place, from the advent of Hoxha’s communist rule after WWII to the end of that regime 5 years after he did in 1985.

The residue of the dictatorship are everywhere, as the ~700,000 concrete bunkers he had built to defend against Albania’s serial enemies - first Russia, then China, then “the West” - are strewn like sarcophagae on the shores of Turkey.

We were told that in the case of the invasion - which never came - 800,000 Albanian men and women aged 14 - 64 would be called up to take up arms in these bunkers.

Two of the biggest bunkers are in the capital, Tirana, and they are now among the museums dedicated to the oppression and intense fear of the dictatorship.  We visited one called “Bunk’Art II” near the central square (the largest, Bunk’Art I, is a little outside the center), an underground labyrinth that connected several of the federal ministry buildings.

The exhibits charted the history since independence of the various police forces and militias, but the most gut-wrenching were the rooms describing the ubiquitous surveillance, work and prison camps, torture, and executions.  Some rooms also had stark art installations, like this one - the dictatorship “monster.” 

The interrogation room 

This plaque told stories about the work camps - note the quote about children in the camps, foreshadowing the Trump horrors.

These hung displays listed names of those executed as enemies of  the state.

An homage to the surveillance state. 

But Albania has changed, and we found there a very welcoming, positive people.  Tirana, in particular, was quite “European,” and the cafes and bars were alive with its people.  We are here in the Balkans during the World Cup, and every cafe and restaurant has at least one TV screen on with the games.  Tirana’s central square was no exception.

Some Tirana street scenes... 

Trek to Blue Eyes

Our main activity in Theth, in the Albanian Alps, was a trek to “Blue Eyes,” a pool of crystalline water that looks, from above, like the eye of a blue-eyed giant.  Normally an 8 hour round trip hike, our great guide Armando found a “new plan,” a bumpy drive to a small hydro-electric power plant that cut the hike in half.  Whew!

It was a hot day and a rocky hike, but the scenery was extraordinary.

The approach was a little tricky ...

... but when we finally got to Blue Eyes, oh what a treat!

And we had a lovely picnik, to boot!