[YEAR 7!] Quit our jobs, sold our home, gone riding...

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St Tryphon Roman Catholic Cathedral

Cats. All over Kotor. And all of them want to pee on Neda's motorcycle seat...

I did some research and they say that Kotor was a popular trading port. When ships docked here, the cats on board hopped off and got left behind, so these felines are actually descended from cats from all over the world!

There are so many cats here that there is a museum and a shop dedicated to the Cats of Kotor.

Walking around the pretty grounds outside the fortifications of Kotor

 

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Shoreline of the Bay of Kotor, just outside the city walls

A popular hike for people like Neda is trekking up the fortress walls. They climb all the way up the hill to reach the ruins of a church at the top. Neda said there's a great view of the old town and the bay from up there, so I begrudgingly tagged along behind her as she marched up the hill. Unfortunately we are not prepared for the hike as the stairway is broken and crumbling. The lady who was charging admission for the climb looked down at our flip-flops and advised against it. But Neda was having none of that...

Castle of San Giovanni above us

There are 1,350 steps to get to the top. Narrow enough for one person only,
so whoever's descending has to give way

You can see some of the ruins below us. Pretty much everyone who came up was wearing hiking shoes. They looked at our sandals and remarked, "You walked up in those?!?!" My calves were going to pay for this tomorrow... Did I mentioned how much I hate hiking?

I huffed and puffed until I caught up to Neda, who was already at the top admiring the view

 

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Cool view of the old city and the Bay of Kotor in the background

I love the look of these old buildings from above

Church of San Giovanni

Flag of Montenegro flying over the Bay of Kotor

 

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After that long-*** hike, we retire back to our apartment just outside the city for some much-deserved rest and relaxation. Our host is an older lady and when we checked in, she was delighted that Neda spoke Croatian! Usually her guests are German or Italian or sometimes English, so she struggles with communicating with them. But when we showed up and Neda started speaking Croatian, she treated her like a favorite niece that came to visit!

Relaxation for Neda means soaking up some sun and starting up a new cross-stitching project

For me, I'm pretending to work on the blog. I'm soooo far behind.

Although our pace is fairly slow, it has also been constant. We've been on the move pretty much since we left Chiang Mai and between all the planning and riding and hiking, that hasn't left me with any time to update the blog. I am petitioning Neda to opt out of the next hike so I can procrastinate some more...

Here I am procrastinating with these neat Russian Matryoshka dolls.

 

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Shy kitty: "If you don't Gnome me by now..."

So many cats hanging around our apartment! And when they crawl under the covers of our motorcycle for the evening, they smell the cat pee that's been left behind by all the other cats on all our previous stops (well, just on Neda's bike). So naturally they add to it to assert their territory. The problem just keeps compounding, every place we stop and every morning when we uncover the bikes, Neda get a whiff of fresh cat pee on her seat and gets very upset. She does her best to clean it up, but I guess the cats have a better sense of smell than Neda.

I'm so glad no cat has peed on my seat...

I'm researching ways to keep the cats off her seat. I've read that cats don't like the sound of aluminum foil crinkling under their feet. Maybe some cayenne pepper...?

Neda prefers turtles because they don't pee on her seat. Also they move slow. Like us...

 

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Okay, enough touristing around, we're going to do some riding! Neda scoped out the good roads around Kotor and she's planned to take us up a series of switchbacks called the Kotor Serpentine. Check it out above!

Glad we are not spending today in Kotor. A cruise ship the size of the moon has just dumped all its occupants into town!

Getting away from it all in Lovcen National Park

Up at the top of the park, we got an amazing view of Kotor and the bay. I wasn't kidding about the size of that cruise ship. It's larger than the town itself!

 

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Descending down the Kotor Serpentine

Yesterday, while we were hiking up to the Church of San Giovanni, we heard the sound of rally cars doing a hill climb competition up the Kotor Serpentine. It was very far away, but you could hear them all over town. Now we know what they were up to!

Out of the black, into the blue!

More switchbacks. I should probably put away the camera...

Pretty coastline of Montenegro below

And a mini-tunnel too!

 

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Heading back down towards Kotor

Neda takes an Instagram shot of me #nofilter #tbt (because #blogsolate)

Great day of riding!

We are departing from Kotor to explore more of Montenegro. As we leave our apartment, these two women walking by wanted to get a picture of our huge Round-The-World bikes!

Celebrities!

 

[Thuri]

Ostrog Monastery

Wife and I did a similar drive around Montenegro a few years back, not sure if its close enough for a day trip from Kotor but Ostrog Monastery was worth the drive.

 

[vintageracer]

subscribed

 

[noeltykay]

This is an absolutely amazing trip report!!!!

 

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Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/322.html

We're leaving the Adriatic coast and riding inland to explore the mountainous region of Montenegro.

On our way out of Kotor

"Where are we headed to today, Neda?"
"Žabljak"

That doesn't sound *anything* like the way that it looks on the road sign. It actually sounds like:

"Ja-Blak", I attempt to parrot back at her.
"No, 'Ja-Blee-Yak'", she corrects me.
"Bla-Bleah"
"You're not even trying."

It's going to be a fun day of riding.

We follow the curve of the road along the Bay of Kotor

North of Niksic, the heavily forested roads become captivating. Switchbacks climb up and down the uneven terrain, giving us a great view of the mountainous roads ahead (and sometimes behind us). Endless curves toss our bikes left, right, left. The whole area north of Kotor is a paradise for motor enthusiasts, two wheels or four.

Here's a short sample of some of the great roads we took, heading towards Durmitor National Park.

Check out the new animated route map in the corner! Neat, eh?

 

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After some fun twisties, we take a detour to visit Nevidio Canyon

Road gets smaller and tighter

We do a mini-hike following the Komarnica River to get to the canyon

This is what I'd look like with a Mike Tyson tattoo on my face

 

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Feet hanging over the gorge

We're not really dressed for canyoning (need a dry suit), but we are dressed for photographing

There are tours that take you deep into the narrow canyon, where you can wade and swim down the Komarnica as it carves through that gorge ahead of us. Kayaking is also popular where the river is more open.

Neda asks me, "Do you know what 'Ne vidio' means in Serbo-Croatian?"
Neda knows I love trivia! "Lay it on me!"
"It means 'Not Seen'. They say the gorge is so narrow and deep that even God can't see inside."
"Cool story, Neda."

The mountain peaks of Durmitor National Park provide a dramatic backdrop against the town of Ja-Blah... Blah-Blak... Bah.

Žabljak (I can only spell it correctly) is a neat little alpine town that comes alive during the winters because of its location near the ski resorts of the Durmitor. In the off-season, only a smattering of tourists visit, mainly for the hiking... and motorcycling too! We passed a bar full of locals, old men inside were getting drunk and singing songs. This is a very European thing to do. We stayed away from the bar for fear of being accosted by a drunk old man. Or worse - being invited inside to join the singing! ("Sorry, I don't know the words!")

 

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In the middle of town we find a nice restaurant that serves Montenegrin cuisine. The mountain region serves up a lot of meat, cheeses and milk dishes, not unlike Croatian food. The menu here was total meatfest, lots of grilled lamb and veal! We were kind of hungry, but not *this* hungry:

OMG! I ate so much I think I have to Bla-Blak!"

If Neda looks a bit angry in the photo above, it's because she was. She ordered something off the menu and it wasn't what she thought it would be. It was hot dogs. She ordered Montenegrin hot dogs... I so totally won. I graciously gave her some of my grilled lamb and veal, like any good winner would.

After lunch, we waddled back to our bikes. The suspension on our BMWs sagged as we hefted our new-found weight back on top of the seats and we rode just a couple of kms outside of town towards our AirBnB place that Neda had found for us online. It was a cool wooden house with steep sloped sides, like most alpine buildings in Europe.

It looks like a little ski chalet

We had the upper floor and the "attic", which was our bedroom, was accessed via a trapdoor. Very neat building!

It rained the next day, so we stayed an extra day to wait out the wet weather

Despite the waterworks outside, the weather has been amazing since we got back to Europe. This is only our 2nd day of rain in nearly a month here. Not bad for this time of year!