Dubrovnik and Kotor

Dubrovnik was founded in the 7th century by coastal residents fleeing the advancing barbarians. The city was originally named Ragusa and thrived as a trading partner with Genoa, Venice and Pisa. We stayed about a ten-minute walk from the old city gate. The problem today is over tourism. Dubrovnik is no longer an obscure former Yugoslav city on the Adriatic, now it’s overrun by mass tourism. The people are shoulder to shoulder, mostly walking without any purpose. Two of my favourite irritants! The restaurants and bars are overpriced and the main attraction, the city walls seem to up the admission by the week. That said, it’s still a must-visit, but try and see it during the shoulder season, and whatever you do, if there is a cruise ship docked, just forget it. Its history of being catholic and surrounded by orthodox and Muslim neighbors meant the city wasn’t immune to the Balkan wars of the 90s. Two-thirds of its buildings were hit by artillery and its cobbled streets and walls suffered hundreds of direct hits.

After completing the city wall walk, we decided to head back to our apartment and consider dinner plans. We decided to walk twenty minutes the opposite direction of the old town to what appeared to be an area dominated by locals. Natasha found us a 100% vegan restaurant that was outstanding. I had a Risotto that rivalled any I’ve ever had. Who knew ground walnut doubles as parmesan?

After Dubrovnik, we headed south and entered the Republic of Montenegro and overnighted in a 13th-century building perfectly located in the old town of Kotor. I didn’t know this prior, but Kotor is known as the city of cats. Officially the coat of arms is the Lion, as it was founded by the Venetians, but in recent years the city has adopted the cat as its unofficial mascot. There are hundreds of cats wandering its streets.

Apart from the cats, the old town is older and better preserved than Dubrovnik, and although Kotor is on the cruise itinerary thanks to its magnificent bay, there are fewer hordes making it a preferred alternative to Dubrovnik.

Kotor is also where we witnessed some top-notch Balkan road rage. Just as we were arriving near the old town and trying to navigate to our hotel's parking spot. The directions to the parking led us down an impossibly narrow road collapsing like a V shape. We were the third car in line, the lady in the first car was trying to squeeze by the cars that had parked on either side which left her about 3 inches on either side. She was paralyzed with no place to go. This is where the Balkan rage started, the guy in the second car who clearly wanted to carry on through the narrow passage to wherever he was going started to lose his mind. First a good 30-second horn, then the flailing started, I could see him jumping up and down in his seat, screaming the whole time arms uncontrollably wild. By this time I could see all three of us would need to back up so I put my car in reverse and waited to see if the lady would try again. She didn’t and like I thought, road rage guy slammed in the car in reverse and punched it without even looking, luckily I anticipated this and was able to get back far enough before he actually noticed I was behind him and slammed on his brakes. This took him to a new level of rage so I kept going back until I was just around the corner from him. Sure enough, a few seconds later he reversed as fast as he could go and then tried to pull a 180 with a hard brake as he cranked the wheel. He made it about halfway around with screeching tires nearly hitting parked cars on both sides. The lady SLOWLY was backing out and this set off road rage guy again, screaming as he was now punching himself in the face and jumping up and down in his seat. Just as the lady made it out of the tight spot, the guy shoved his car in gear and sped off as fast as he could go with pedestrians jumping out of the way. He somehow was able to pass his car through the narrow opening at about 80km/h. Luckily nobody was hurt and after the incident, I found the whole event quite amusing.