November 6 - Kotor, Montenegro

Early this morning I did something I rarely do – I got up before dawn to watch us sail into Kotor, Montenegro. Despite having cruised in this part of the world a number of times I’d never been here before.  To get to the little town of Kotor we had to sail through a pretty spectacular series of fjords. It was  dark but as we moved silently along the eastern sky turned pink and then golden and created beautiful reflections in the calm water ahead of us.  

I should write a little about Montenegro which is where Kotor is located.  The Balkan Peninsula has had nearly as  chaotic a history in modern times as the Middle East, also in part to the way that countries were created by other parties at the end of wars.  Prior to WW I the area was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a portion also belonging to the Ottoman Empire.  When the Austrians and Ottomans lost WWI the victors created the Kingdom of  Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.  In 1929 the name was changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.  During WWII significant fighting occurred in the peninsula because there was heavy resistance from the population.  One of the leaders of the resistance was a man named Josef Broz Tito, a Communist.  Following the Allied victory in 1945, Yugoslavia was reconstituted and added some territory in the northeastern Adriatic area from Italy.  It became under the control of Tito from then until his death in 1980.  He ruled first as prime minister and then as president.

Why am I writing all this?  Well, when I was a child my family lived in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, for nearly 5 years when my father was assigned there.  During our time in the country I had been to Montenegro but not to Kotor which sits on a fjord on the southernmost coast of the Adriatic.  My father was in the US Army and at the time we were giving Mr. Tito aid in an effort to keep him from aligning Yugoslavia with the Warsaw Pact nations in eastern Europe. When the breakup of the country came in 1991, Montenegro initially formed a union with Serbia, but in 2006 the two former Yugoslav states separated and became the independent nations of Serbia and Montenegro.  Everyone I’m sure remembers the wars and terrible things which happened in the 1990’s in Bosnia , Croatia and Kosovo.  Those conflicts were driven by many things but one of the principal causes was religious differences between Muslims and Orthodox Christians.  How many times has religion been the cause of war?

I’m writing too much but I want to chronicle my memories of this area.  When my family lived in Yugoslavia we had both a Muslim and a Christian maid.  During our years in the country everyone seemed to get along and tolerate one another.  My memory has been reinforced in the times I’ve visited Slovenia, Croatia and now Montenegro. I’ve spoken with locals who have told me that their parents and grandparents told them how everyone got along in Tito’s time.  He was a dictator but at least people weren’t killing each other.  Oh well.

Anyway, after we docked and I slept for another hour or two, I went ashore and hired a taxi to take me on a little tour of the area. There is a small walled city, but I chose to drive out along the fjord and go to a couple of lookout points.  My driver was a young woman named Angela who is married with two little boys and a third on the way. She and her husband both have degrees in hotel management and tourism.  As it happens tourism is about the principal business of Montenegro.  Because of that the Covid era was particularly tough for the country.  Now it is experiencing some inflation because a number of refugees from Ukraine have come into the country which has raised the cost of housing in particular because the supply of housing hasn’t kept up with the influx of people.  

Angela drove me to the top of one of the very steep mountains around the fjord where I got a lovely view of the Encore down below.  It really reminded me of the view one gets in some of the fjords in Norway except there everything is very green and here there’s a lot of rock with spots of vegetation intermingled.  We drove back down to sea level and drove around the fjord to a little village where we stopped and sat at a café and had something to drink.  I tried a glass of a nice dry Montenegrin white wine and we talked about what life is like for a Montenegrin family.  There is public education through 12th grade.  After that young people can choose university or trade school.  There is a public health system but Angela said that for any kind of significant treatments there can be significant wait times.  Hence people who can afford it pay a private provider to get a procedure done.  The population is primarily Eastern Orthodox Christian and the total population of the country is approximately 650,000. Montenegro is a member of NATO but it isn’t a member of the European Union despite using the Euro as the currency.  The country is trying to gain membership and may acquire that in 2028.

Well, now I’ve written more than anyone really wants to know about this country, but I like to get things arranged in my head so I understand where people are coming from and why things may happen. The area around Kotor is quite beautiful but for me the interesting part of our stop here was having the opportunity to spend a few hours with Angela and gaining some insights into her life and her thoughts.

After a couple of hours she brought me back to the ship, we said our goodbyes and I marked the day down as a success even though it probably doesn’t sound all that exciting. Onboard the daily routine continued.  We had another session of trivia.  We finished pretty well but tomorrow will be the last day of the cumulative session so we’ll see then how we fared.  I had dinner at a hosted table with the Argentine manager of the shops on board and some new acquaintances.  The night ended as usual with a show and then a little dancing. Laku noć (I think that’s good night.)