Post by Dsurazal on Dec 26, 2007 16:01:01 GMT -5
You shall go to the Balkans …
By Joanna Blythman
if you travel anywhere this year, you should go to Montenegro
IT'S 7AM and I'm swimming in what feels like the finest natural pool imaginable. This is Boka Kotorska, or the bay of Kotor. In this sinuous fjord of the Adriatic, the clear water, with its darting shoals of tiny fish, has been warmed up by weeks of reliably hot weather. There are invigorating little currents of coolness though, provided by fresh water streams that trickle down from the towering limestone mountains which hold the bay in their protective embrace.
We have taken a villa in Dobrota, with its elegant patrimony of 19th century baroque summer holiday homes built by wealthy Montenegrins. So all I have to do is pass through the garden with its shady palm trees, walk 10 metres, and splash in. In the peace of the early morning, before the sun has hit its blinding noonday height, I commit to memory the vista before me. The bay is lined with centuries-old Venetian houses constructed from honey-coloured limestone. My eye scans along to the old town of Kotor itself. I can glimpse its miraculously intact Baroque, Romanesque and Gothic buildings peeping out from the vertiginous city walls which bond it to the mountains, framing it in an upside down V shape.
The Hebridean Spirit, a small cruise boat registered in Glasgow, sits in the harbour. A gleaming wooden schooner under full sail glides slowly past on its way out to deeper waters. Between the harbour and the city walls, I can just make out the huddle of vans that congregate for the daily food market. I know, from my shopping trips, that there will be silvery whitebait and squid; smoked, dried Montenegrin ham sliced off the bone; handmade cheeses - perhaps preserved in oil or pressed with walnuts - and an explosion of fruit. In Montenegro, the sun-soaked apricots and peaches spurt juice down your chin and wrist, the watermelons split under the slightest pressure, the raspberries, brambles and multicoloured cherries explode with a flavour that sings out sun and growing methods that have barely changed over the centuries.
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It really is magnificent, so why, I wonder, have I not been here before? A couple of months back I would have struggled to locate Montenegro on a map. For fellow ignoramuses, the tiny republic lies south of Croatia and north of Albania on the Adriatic. Once part of Yugoslavia, it dissolved its union with Serbia last year. Whether it is the impetus that comes from gaining its independence, or simply because the international community has woken up to the fact that it has kilometre after kilometre of breathtakingly beautiful coastline, Montenegro is rapidly eclipsing Croatia as the latest, happening Balkan destination.
Montenegro isn't virgin tourist territory. In the 1950s, its trademark exclusive island resort, Sveti Stefan, was the playground of starlets and royalty. Peruse the more obscure Balkan holiday brochures nowadays and, tucked in beside other upcoming Balkan destinations such as Bulgaria, you will find packages to sandy Montenegrin beaches along the Budva riviera, only marred by its ugly, Soviet-style hotels and apartment blocks. Coastal Montenegro has its fair share of Iron Curtain holiday complexes, but their utilitarian architecture is tempered by the natural beauty of their settings. They take on an almost avant- garde charm and bustle with activity.
I'm glad, however, that we have chosen the bay of Kotor. Precisely because it lacks sandy beaches, it has been spared the worst grey concrete developments. Instead is has a series of pontoons, jetties with steps, and narrow pebbly beachfront fringed by human-scale architecture. It has more life than the picture postcard pretty village of Perast, just down the road. I like its normality.
We are the only foreign tourists on our beach, which fills up with locals who come for a dip after work or college. Kotor's population is a mix of Serbs, Montenegrins, ethnic Albanians and Croatians, a miscellany of Serb Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims. The people here are gruff, not charmers like Italians, but they are friendly enough and leave you in peace.
For a change of scene, we head inland, winding our way up through dramatic, thickly wooded mountains to a different Montenegro. Here you see fertile, sparsely populated valleys, traditional houses with carefully-tended potagers, old Skodas in the barnyards and working horses. There is a Land That Time Forgot character about it, a feeling intensified when you visit the former capital, Cetinje, where the air is heady with the scent of wormwood trees. Here soldiers in uniforms straight out of The Prisoner Of Zenda guard the presidential palace. Grand, late-19th century former embassies have been reinvented as museums, art schools and the like, only just holding at bay the town's Sleeping Beauty mood.
Then it's back to our beach and its breathtaking view, which is ever-changing and endlessly fascinating. Every different shade of light, every scudding cloud, each surge of activity in the harbour ensures it never gets boring. It's hard to think of anywhere else in Europe where I would find, or could afford, such an all-round blissful situation. It is worth making the most of every precious minute.
www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.1924052.0.0.php
By Joanna Blythman
if you travel anywhere this year, you should go to Montenegro
IT'S 7AM and I'm swimming in what feels like the finest natural pool imaginable. This is Boka Kotorska, or the bay of Kotor. In this sinuous fjord of the Adriatic, the clear water, with its darting shoals of tiny fish, has been warmed up by weeks of reliably hot weather. There are invigorating little currents of coolness though, provided by fresh water streams that trickle down from the towering limestone mountains which hold the bay in their protective embrace.
We have taken a villa in Dobrota, with its elegant patrimony of 19th century baroque summer holiday homes built by wealthy Montenegrins. So all I have to do is pass through the garden with its shady palm trees, walk 10 metres, and splash in. In the peace of the early morning, before the sun has hit its blinding noonday height, I commit to memory the vista before me. The bay is lined with centuries-old Venetian houses constructed from honey-coloured limestone. My eye scans along to the old town of Kotor itself. I can glimpse its miraculously intact Baroque, Romanesque and Gothic buildings peeping out from the vertiginous city walls which bond it to the mountains, framing it in an upside down V shape.
The Hebridean Spirit, a small cruise boat registered in Glasgow, sits in the harbour. A gleaming wooden schooner under full sail glides slowly past on its way out to deeper waters. Between the harbour and the city walls, I can just make out the huddle of vans that congregate for the daily food market. I know, from my shopping trips, that there will be silvery whitebait and squid; smoked, dried Montenegrin ham sliced off the bone; handmade cheeses - perhaps preserved in oil or pressed with walnuts - and an explosion of fruit. In Montenegro, the sun-soaked apricots and peaches spurt juice down your chin and wrist, the watermelons split under the slightest pressure, the raspberries, brambles and multicoloured cherries explode with a flavour that sings out sun and growing methods that have barely changed over the centuries.
advertisement
It really is magnificent, so why, I wonder, have I not been here before? A couple of months back I would have struggled to locate Montenegro on a map. For fellow ignoramuses, the tiny republic lies south of Croatia and north of Albania on the Adriatic. Once part of Yugoslavia, it dissolved its union with Serbia last year. Whether it is the impetus that comes from gaining its independence, or simply because the international community has woken up to the fact that it has kilometre after kilometre of breathtakingly beautiful coastline, Montenegro is rapidly eclipsing Croatia as the latest, happening Balkan destination.
Montenegro isn't virgin tourist territory. In the 1950s, its trademark exclusive island resort, Sveti Stefan, was the playground of starlets and royalty. Peruse the more obscure Balkan holiday brochures nowadays and, tucked in beside other upcoming Balkan destinations such as Bulgaria, you will find packages to sandy Montenegrin beaches along the Budva riviera, only marred by its ugly, Soviet-style hotels and apartment blocks. Coastal Montenegro has its fair share of Iron Curtain holiday complexes, but their utilitarian architecture is tempered by the natural beauty of their settings. They take on an almost avant- garde charm and bustle with activity.
I'm glad, however, that we have chosen the bay of Kotor. Precisely because it lacks sandy beaches, it has been spared the worst grey concrete developments. Instead is has a series of pontoons, jetties with steps, and narrow pebbly beachfront fringed by human-scale architecture. It has more life than the picture postcard pretty village of Perast, just down the road. I like its normality.
We are the only foreign tourists on our beach, which fills up with locals who come for a dip after work or college. Kotor's population is a mix of Serbs, Montenegrins, ethnic Albanians and Croatians, a miscellany of Serb Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims. The people here are gruff, not charmers like Italians, but they are friendly enough and leave you in peace.
For a change of scene, we head inland, winding our way up through dramatic, thickly wooded mountains to a different Montenegro. Here you see fertile, sparsely populated valleys, traditional houses with carefully-tended potagers, old Skodas in the barnyards and working horses. There is a Land That Time Forgot character about it, a feeling intensified when you visit the former capital, Cetinje, where the air is heady with the scent of wormwood trees. Here soldiers in uniforms straight out of The Prisoner Of Zenda guard the presidential palace. Grand, late-19th century former embassies have been reinvented as museums, art schools and the like, only just holding at bay the town's Sleeping Beauty mood.
Then it's back to our beach and its breathtaking view, which is ever-changing and endlessly fascinating. Every different shade of light, every scudding cloud, each surge of activity in the harbour ensures it never gets boring. It's hard to think of anywhere else in Europe where I would find, or could afford, such an all-round blissful situation. It is worth making the most of every precious minute.
www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.1924052.0.0.php