1/6/11 Cetinje, Montenegro and Cruise to Korcula

Sveti Stephan (St. Stephan) a former fishing village that is now a luxury resort at Budva

Budva coast and development

We took a side trip to the original capital of Montenegro, Cetinje. The bus took us to the coast and the booming tourist town of Budva, where part of  the new Casino Royale was filmed. The coastline is spectacular – like Big Sur – and we stopped a couple times for photos. We stopped at a village for a ‘sample’ of local products, which was a second breakfast with cottage cheese, 2 thick slabs of other cheese (one like jack, the other a feta) and 2 big slices of prosciutto, bread, and a full glass of wine – this was at 9am or so. The food was good, but I was not ready for or interested in a second breakfast.

Once we got to the former capitol we learned that the last king, Nicholas, had been educated outside of the country and came back at age 19 when his father died, and was married off to a 15 yr old, who apparently was not quite clued in on marital responsibilities. Once she figured it out, they had 9 daughters and 3 sons. The museum had a collection of all the medals Nicholas was awarded, for God knows what, by the royalty of Europe along with some clothing, furniture, arms, etc. Finally, we were let loose to wander the town. For them 1/6 is Christmas Eve, so it was a party day – not much of anything open but bars and markets. They were setting up a big bonfire in the square by the museum and selling tree branches with leaves so everyone would have a branch to toss on later.

Islet of Our Lady of the Rock

During lunch, we sailed across Kotor Bay to the Islet of Our Lady of the Rocks, a chapel built on a man-made island, right next to a natural island with a small defunct monastery. In the 1400s, the story goes, a couple sailors found a painting of Mary and Jesus on the rocks/reef next to the monastic island and determined they needed to create a chapel there to display the painting. They started sinking rocks and boats to build up the island, which took 200 years til there was enough surface to create the chapel. We took a tour of the chapel and the museum attached to it with lots of items donated by people who had prayed to Mary, especially for the safety of sea travel/travelers. We ceremonially tossed a rock from the mainland into the water next to the landing.   

Sunset from our cabin on the way out of Kotor Bay

Once that was done, we headed for Korcula, about 7 hrs away in the ship.