Kotor

The town I was in was called Herceg Novi, it was a pretty one. I toured it in the morning, waiting for my stuff to dry,

I was at the entrace to the The Bay of Kotor, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a beautiful place, it seemed even nicer than what I had in memory of a previous visit as a teenager. Probably the nicest town there is Perast, which has 20 churches and two islands with a church each, so the total count is 22. There is a tall tower, with 150 steps, offering an amazing views of the town and the bay. I also visited a place with Roman mosaics.

A funny scene was when I was "racing" a large cruise ship - I was biking into the bay, the ship was slowly sailing towards the end of the bay, us having pretty much the same speed.

In the town of Kotor itself, I visited an orthodox church, where a christening ceremony was full in bloom. I watched it for good half an hour or so, have never seen anything like it. The ceremony was witnessed by a young Russian girl, who was peacefully restoring the wall painting of the church during the ceremony.

Then came the major climb of the day: the serpentine outside Kotor, going from sea-level to 1,000 meters, with not less than 25 turns. The nice thing is that there is hardly any traffic on this road, as now there is a tunnel for cars. With my parents, this was the only road into the bay, so I recall us making us all the switchbacks. Aapparently, I misjudged how strenuous it would get...but then rewarding, too; you not only see Kotor from above, but the entire bay, even more: the open sea on the horizon.

As usual, it was getting dark when I reached the top...well, not the top, really: it descended to a high plain, but then it was yet again a long climb. Boy, was I happy to reach the motel owned by Dragan. He had a party going on there: a bunch of college students went there to sing Montenegrean and Serbian folk songs.

It was fun listening to them, but I was very tired by one am, I think the party must have lasted till three in the morning - but I slept like a baby.