Both: Hey everyone! It’s Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.
Greg: This time we’re going to talk about Montenegro.
Jen: I’m not really sure how we’re going to be able to fit all of our month in Montenegro into one post, uh, but we’re going to give it our best shot.
Greg: Yeah, I think basically we should tell people about Montenegro ‘cause I think a lot of people maybe have not heard of it.
Jen: Okay! So Montenegro is a small Balkan country that is directly across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It is very popular with tourists from Croatia and Russia, Serbia, but it is growing more popular with tourists from Western European countries and even Americans as well.
Greg: Yeah! So there’s plenty of places to visit in Montenegro. There’s a UNESCO city called Kotor, and it was actually popular with cruise lines. It’s a stop for many cruise lines on the Mediterranean.
Jen: Yeah, we actually saw several cruise ships coming in and out of that bay from Kotor.
Greg: Yeah. Besides Kotor, there’s Cetinje, there’s Budva, there’s also a national park for the big mountain areas, and uh, there’s seaside resorts. We picked a small town called Herceg Novi.
Jen: Yeah, so Herceg Novi is right there on the coast, and it’s really close to the Croatian border. It has beautiful scenery. There’s green hills. There’s blue water. If you look out from the water into the city, there is a fort that’s there that kind of dominates the cityscape. And with all that being said, it is still really affordable.
But I think that’s probably because there are parts of town that are a little older, a little bit more run down. Not that we ever felt unsafe or it’s dangerous at all. It’s still a really great place to stay!
Greg: There’s also a promenade that you kind of walk along the water’s edge. We did that too. It’s a lot of restaurants. Some of the hotels are also along there, but it was a really neat walk.
Jen: Yeah, and according to Google Maps, Herceg Novi is “the medieval city known for its many steps”. And I think we climbed just about all of them.
Greg: Yeah…it was a little bit of a tough haul, especially with the narrow streets sometimes. But, um, overall, architecture, Old Town, we love it. This had that. There was a church. It was very old and really neat to see - inside and out - although it was really small.
Jen: Yeah, I think that church probably could have fit in maybe, like, the reception area of a lot of those European churches we went to.
Greg: Yeah, for sure. Uh, besides that, we did walk around the old fort that she mentioned. It’s called Forte Mare.
Jen: (laughs) Greg always says things with an Italian accent.
Greg: Well, it depends. If I’m in Italy, it’s Spanish.
Jen: Yeah. (laughing) It’s never country appropriate with his language.
Greg: Yeah, in any case, the fort is in a little particular part that gives a great vantage point of the bay so that you can watch for those attacks from the sea. Because, you know, it was built in the late 1300s.
I do question how much defense it provided, though, because apparently that fort changed hands a lot…
Jen: Yeah, I think it was run by the Venetians, the Spanish at one point, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire that we mentioned last time.
Greg: That’s right. The Habsburgs!
Jen: (laughs) So I don’t think defense was their strong suit…
Greg: I guess not. We did have one gripe about Herceg Novi specifically. We like sandy beaches. We did not realize that’s not what they have.
Jen: Yeah, somehow in all of our research, we missed that.
Greg: Yeah
Jen: Um, it’s rocky beaches there in Herceg Novi, and they’re a little bit tough on the feet.
Greg: Yeah, but we did swim in the Adriatic a few times, which was really, really nice. The water temperature’s a little chilly, but still very comfortable.
Jen: Yeah, it’s kind of fun when we’re out there swimming and we’re like, “We’re in the middle of the Adriatic Sea.”
Well, maybe not the middle…(laughs) but we’re swimming in the Adriatic Sea.
Greg: Yeah, which is kind of like swimming anywhere else, I guess, except the water is completely clear.
Jen: Yeah. And there’s these little fish that like to nibble on your toes and your legs.
Greg: Some of those little fish bit a little bit hard.
Jen: I realize that people, like, pay good money in some parts of the world to have this experience, like a spa, but, um, I will never be one of those people.
Greg: No. It was…awkward and weird.
Jen: (laughs) Yes.
Greg: But if you go far enough away from the shoreline, uh, the water gets a little too deep. Those little fish are not there.
Jen: Yeah.
Greg: So for staying in Herceg Novi, we chose a little kind of mid-range hotel called Centar Novi. And the staff there really made it worth it. The service we received rivaled even the luxurious hotels that we chose during our travel. They were so great.
Jen: Yeah, and it was probably one of the cleanest hotels we stayed in. I mean, every day they would come in, and if you didn’t have your little sticker on the door, they were gonna full mop the room, change the sheets, all of that.
One day we were in the room working on something, and we heard them doing a turnover of the room next to us. And we went to peek outside to see what all the noise was. And they were flipping up the mattress, vacuuming under the bed, moving out the couch, vacuuming behind that. I’ve never seen that happen before in a hotel.
Greg: Yeah. And the thing that was surprising is when they would do the mopping and the bathroom cleaning and the sheets, that’s every day! Unless you hung the tag on your door that said, please leave me alone.
Jen: Yeah, they were really great. And like Greg said, the staff was awesome. There was probably about five or six of them that were there all the time. They got to know us whether they liked it or not.
Greg: Yeah. Also, it was really great because we didn’t speak the language locally. And they did speak English, most of them pretty well. And so if we went up front and said we’d like to order food to have delivered or we need to get a taxi, they would call, speak the local language. And, you know, in the case of the taxi, they’d walk down and outside, wait for the taxi with us, talk to the taxi driver and say, here’s what’s going on. Like, wait for them at this place, bring them back. So we really appreciated that.
Jen: Yeah, it was really awesome. And one special thing that I remember about the staff in general, probably about three days before my birthday, I said, “Man, I’m not going to get a birthday cake this year.”
I never ask for a birthday cake…
Greg: I was surprised that you made the comment.
Jen: And so poor Greg, unbeknownst to me, started to scramble. And he got the chef there at the hotel that made our breakfast to make me a cake.
Greg: Yeah. Now, a little bit of context. “Chef” is being generous —
Jen: Yes, but that’s what they said.
Greg: She prepares the breakfast because she’s also the person who makes the pastries for the cafe down on the first floor.
Jen: Yes. So the cake was a chocolate cake. And on top of it, it had kind of like what I think was supposed to be a vanilla mousse, but maybe had a little bit too much gelatin in it. So it was a little stiff, but it had a mirror glaze on it. And she had written “happy birthday” in English.
Greg: Yeah. And when we went up for breakfast on Jennifer’s birthday, Isadora - the chef - looked at me and I just nodded. So when Jennifer sat down, uh, with her breakfast, Isadora came out with the cake, couple little candles in it, and was very quietly and softly singing “Happy Birthday” in English.
Jen: Yes, because everything she did was quiet. She was a very soft spoken lady. So I think singing was probably way out of her comfort zone —
Greg: Yeah.
Jen: — so I really appreciate it.
So when we got the cake, we said, “Please sit down with us, have a slice of cake for breakfast.”
Um, and she said, “No, no, thank you. I don’t I don’t eat the cake. I just make it with love.” (laughs)
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting piece to that, though. We offered cake to a lot of the people that work the front desk. We offered to share cake with the people who worked in the cafe. Everyone would say no. It was like you wanted to go, I guess the cake’s not good. No, it was a good cake! They just didn’t want to take the cake from us.
Jen: Yeah, so we asked about this. We asked one of the staff members that we had kind of gotten close to, “So we’ve been trying to share this cake, but nobody seems to want it. Like, why is that?”
Greg: Yeah, so they said it’s kind of a holdover from the older generations who got used to when it was all communist run. Apparently, that behavior persists of don’t take gifts, don’t take favors, you don’t want to owe anyone. And, uh, we thought that was a really neat cultural difference.
Jen: Yeah. And we noticed a few other cultural differences, too, while we’re on the subject. One of those things we saw was in the grocery store that was on the first floor of the hotel. We were in there quite often. And whether it was a long line or a short line, people would ask to cut in line, basically. Like if a woman had a baby, can I please go in front? And nobody ever seemed to have a problem with this.
Greg: No, it’s true. One time we were next for the register ‘cause there was usually only one register.
Jen: Right.
Greg: And it was just this one guy who just needed one sponge. And there were probably about four or five people behind us. He walked up, spoke in whatever language, uh, and everybody just kind of like shrugged. And he looked at me. I kind of guessed what he said, but I just gave him the motion generically like, please, after you. Um and he just went right ahead, paid for his one sponge, thanked everybody and walked off. And it was like, no big deal.
Jen: Yeah. And then another time there was this lady behind us when we were checking out in line and she asked us a question in her language. And the cashier looked at us and said, “She wants to know if she can put your bill on her rewards card.” And we said, “Sure, that’s no problem.”
But everything always seemed to work itself out. Like it was so pleasant. Nobody got offended. Nobody got annoyed. It was what it was.
Greg: Yeah. Well, there was also a place in that grocery store to get food, which is kind of why we went there so often, whether it was like meatballs or stuffed peppers.
Jen: My favorite!
Greg: Yeah. Unfortunately, because we didn’t speak the local language and the women behind the counter…they did not speak English. Sometimes it was a little difficult, but, you know, I know we frustrated them, ah, once or twice, but they were usually very patient with us.
But the last time that we knew we were going to go there before we left, we broke out the phone, used Google Translate to kind of write, you know, a little something for them, just basically saying, “We really appreciate all of your patience and your smiles, and you made it really great for us during our time here. We’re going to miss you.” You know?
Jen: Yeah. And so when I handed my phone to the lady across the counter, she kind of gave us this weird look like, “Why are you giving me your phone?:
And until she read what we had written and she kind of got this look in her eye and I thought she was going to get a little emotional. And she handed it to the other lady who I affectionately called “the grumpy one” — (laughs)
Greg: (laughs)
Jen: — And they both kind of put their hand on their heart and smiled at us. I think it was just really neat for us to be able to make that connection with somebody.
Greg: Yeah, it’s always nice when you can connect with the local people while you travel.
One other cool thing about the culture in Montenegro, even though technically it’s not part of Serbia, they all used to be a part, you know, of the same country and the same culture. So, uh, they have a shared thing called kajmak, which the Serbian government in 2017 recognized officially as integral to their cultural heritage.
Jen: Yeah, and while we weren’t in Serbia, we still enjoyed it quite a lot.
Greg: Yeah, it’s kind of like butter, but like better.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: It’s not quite cheese, but…ahh it was just, it’s good. And they would give it to you to, like, put on bread and snack on, or they would stuff it inside of like, uh, a cutlet and make like a roulade that they would fry or whatever. And then when you cut into it, it would kind of just ooze out like a creamy sauce.
Jen: Yeah. And we were so excited about it after we came back from this restaurant and we told Melitza, the lady at the hotel, and she looked at us like, you can buy that in the grocery store. (laughing)
Greg: Yeah. They’re like, yeah, it’s kajmak, whatever.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: Um, but yeah, look, the, the main reason that we were in Montenegro to let the Schengen area calendar keep rolling on, right? We’ve, we’ve talked about it, ah, more than once. And so Montenegro being outside of the Schengen area allowed us to do that. And we wanted to be able to spend some of that time working on the Substack and doing a lot of the updates of places we had traveled before.
Jen: And one of the added benefits that we didn’t even realize at the time, we were able to research a lot of places we wanted to go and plan a lot of our future travel while we were there.
Greg: Yeah, we got a lot of travel booked.
Jen: Yeah. I think we changed our minds on a few places a couple of times, but we had the time! (laughs)
Greg: (laughs) Yes. But look, when you spend a month somewhere, you end up with a little bit of anecdotal stories as well. And we have those.
Jen: Yeah, I feel like one of my favorites that we always tell is our very first night there, we were walking to dinner. And as we passed the cafe that was on the first floor, it was kind of on a raised area. And there was a three inch drain pipe that came out onto the sidewalk. And as we walked by, out of the drain pipe pops this little black kitten that was probably two months old. And he pounced on us like a panther.
Greg: Oh, yeah! Had his paws up in the air looking at us like he was going to try to do something!
Jen: Had this hoarse little meow. He was like he thought he was a huge jungle cat.
And I was so worried that he was about to try to follow us onto the busy street. But thankfully, he did not.
Greg: Also, I feel you’re leaving out the part where you wanted to pick him up, and I said, “DO NOT TOUCH THE WILDLIFE.”
Jen: This is true. This was probably the first of many times on this trip that Greg’s like, “No, you can’t touch the dog. No, you can’t touch the cat. Leave them alone.”
Greg: Yeah, so...funny enough, the dog she’s mentioning, we had gotten to calling the Neighborhood Enforcer.
Jen: Yes. So this was a beagle mix. So it had a special place in our heart. But this dog strutted around that town. He did not just walk around that town. He had a strut.
Greg: Oh, and when he crossed the street, every car stopped.
Jen: Yep! Everybody knew him. He would go to the grocery store, people would know him. We were in the restaurant across the street. He walked in, kind of gave it a once over, looked at everybody, walked out like he was the manager. Just wanted to make sure everybody was working.
Greg: Yeah! Walked into our hotel lobby at one point, just laid down and took a nap.
Jen: Yep. And I happened to go upstairs and sneak out a teacup so I could give the dog some water because I felt bad for him. He wasn’t a skinny dog. This was somebody’s dog. I don’t know why I felt bad for him!
Greg: No, in fact, she puts the, the little teacup down. She gets the water in it. And the dog’s looking at her like, do you want me to drink this?
Jen: (laughing)
Greg: And he took a couple of sips to be polite. And then he just kind of like looked at us like, what are you doing?
Jen: Went back to his nap. And Nevin upstairs, the hotel guy, he was like, “Y’all are crazy.” He thought we were the silliest Americans trying to take care of this dog.
Greg: Well, yeah, because from his perspective, he’s like, it’s somebody’s dog ‘cause he’s fat.
Jen: And he goes, “You can’t bring him in your room.” (laughs)
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) But —
Jen: I thought about it! (laughs)
Greg: Yeah. But, um, besides the animal story, one really strange thing. I think it was within the first couple of days. We’re looking out the window from our room that overlooked the marina and we could see the water. It was beautiful. But in the marina, there’s this bigger sailboat. And at the top is a flag. And Jennifer’s like, “I think that’s a UT flag.” And I’m like, “Noooo”.
Jen: (laughs) Greg’s like, “Why would there be a UT flag in Montenegro?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” So I take my phone and, like, zoom in and take a picture. Sure enough, Longhorn flag in the middle of the marina. I wanted to sneak down to the marina to see who was there.
Greg: Oh, no, no. They keep the riffraff out and that included us.
Jen: Yes. So it was only there a couple of days. So he left. So we didn’t get to see who it was. But it was really random.
Greg: Yeah. But, you know, a lot of little stories like that.
Once the month was up, uh, I think the, I guess saddest part was we had grown so close with the staff that it was a little bit emotional to say goodbye.
Jen: Yeah, we, I think we all got a little teary eyed. Melitza, the staff member there, she gave us a big hug and she said, “I’m not normally a hugger, but I will hug you.” It was just like we were leaving friends at that point.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
So, uh, that pretty much wraps up, I think, almost everything for Montenegro. The one piece we left out, we’re going to talk about in the next update.
Jen: Yeah, so one of my close friends and her husband were on a Mediterranean cruise, and one of their spots that they were going to stop was in Dubrovnik…in Croatia.
So since we were so close, we were able to take a day trip there and be able to hang out with them for the day. So it was really awesome!
Greg: Yeah, so the next update will tell you all about Old Dubrovnik, which we both agree is worth a visit if you’re in the area.
Jen: Yeah, I wish we would have had more time there for sure.
Greg: Yeah. So thanks for checking in.
Jen: And we’ll see you at the next stop!
