Kotor is a remote coastal town situated in a large bay; our
neighbour explained that it is actually a fiord. Italian is spoken in
Monenegro, however we also find many people speaking Croatian. There is no or
limited internet access in the towns and no mobile phone coverage, so we truly
had some down time.
The township of Kotor is also surrounded by a fortified wall
with cute streets and markets. There is
a fort at the top of the cliffs above the city (not quite double the height of
the Mount). Corban and Leo did really well
walking to the top, climbing the slippery stone steps in the hot temperature of
about 36°. We stopped in the shade every
so often for a drink of water.
We don’t plan on having any hospital visits this summer, but
Corban did develop an abscess on her gum.
Thankfully we drove past an open dental clinic and managed to make her
an appointment; the dentist even spoke some English. Much to her delight the best way to fix the
abscess was to extract her front tooth.
She is very pleased to finally have a missing tooth; it’s likely she’ll
have a gap for quite some time as her adult teeth are not ready to come down
yet.
Life in Montenegro is very relaxed and the more east we come
the less modern conveniences seem available.
Most noticeable are western fast food chains like McDonalds, KFC,
Starbucks etc they are simply not here. Even the supermarkets are smaller with
less available, buying food from market stalls and side road vendors seem more
normal.
We enjoyed our stay in Kotor. Swimming everyday at the beach
was wonderful, even swimming some mornings early before breakfast. It was neat
seeing Corban get more confident at snorkelling and finding treasure, getting
excited about the fish and crabs she found. Leo also became more water
confident, always wanting us to watch him go under the water and swim with
flippers. Taylor collected mussels and Allan become so tan, that Leo said he
“wasn’t from our family”.
