Croatia, etc. Day #4. “Montenegro”

Today we went to the neighboring country of Montenegro, but first I have to tell you about the dinner we had yesterday evening.

Last night we went to “Restaurant 360” (Address: Sv.Dominka bb, 20000 Dubrovnik), a Michelin star rated restaurant. The restaurant was recommended by our tour company (Tauck). We had a sense that this was going to be a special evening because we were unable to get dinner reservation before 9:15 pm. Since my body still seems to be on LA time, a 9:15 pm dinner would be 12:15 PM in Los Angeles so it would be like we were having lunch. My brilliant wife suggested that we go to the restaurant early to see if they could seat us and sure enough we arrived at 8:35 and they immediate brought us to our table for dinner (or early lunch).

The restaurant has ordering rules. They divide the menu into 3 groups. Group I is the cold appetizers. Group II is the hot appetizers. Group III is the entrees. You must order one item from Group III and either one or two items from the other two groups.

We made our choices and what followed was an incredible array of foods that would have been at home in any gourmet magazine.

The above items were not ordered by us. As the waiter put it, “These are some food items to get you ready for the meal”. Then we received:

Then finally.

As you might have guessed the cost of the meal was a bit pricey. So if you are expecting us to be bringing you home a souvenir from this trip, we are bringing you the above pictures. Enjoy.

Now let’s focus on today’s visit to Montenegro. Montenegro is south and east of Croatia. It was about a 1 hour drive to the border and close to the same amount of time to cross the border. I think the Montenegras border agents were trained by the US agents at our Canadian border. We crossed from the USA into Canada years ago in about 5 minutes and about 50 minutes the other direction.

After the trauma at the border we continued on to the towns of Perast and Kotor. Perast is a small town with only 200 residents and 19 churches (that is not a misprint). I am sure you realize this is not my kind of place. The main attraction in Perast is a church on a small island called the Our Lady of the Rocks. We waited in the hot sun to enter the church. It was cute and modestly interesting but not my thing. My takeaway lesson about Perast is that it is very hot. There is another island nearby called St. George. It is a private location where some priests live. Here is a shot of Patrice and me with St. George in the background.

Then it was a short drive to another port city called Kotor. This is a walled city up against a mountain. We went to the Maritime Museum and a church. During the walk our guide told us the history of the town. My takeaway lesson was that it was, like Perast, very hot.

In Kotor, we were told the major passions of the visitors is the pizza and the gelato I tried the pizza and it was delicious and inexpensive.

The return to Dubrovnik was uneventful until we got to the border and again had to wait about an hour to cross. Tomorrow we leave Dubrovnik but to be honest I don’t know where we are going. I do know I need to be on the bus by 7:30 AM. So, good night for now.