Croatia and Montenegro and Bosnia ~ Day 2

Today's plan - go to The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. Key words: the plan. 😉

We were once again up at 6am and after an evening of thunderstorms, it was blissfully much cooler. We (again) enjoyed coffee/tea and breakfast on the patio overlooking the Adriatic Sea and Old Town Dubrovnik. By 8am we were in the car heading to The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, estimated by GPS to be less than 1 1/2 hour drive. 

We made good time to the Montenegro border, although it was slow-going at the border and we are not sure why as the guy at the desk barely looked at us - just stamped our passports and away we went. Then the traffic started and the storms came again - our 1 1/2 hour ETA quickly went by the wayside. 

Some pictures of Montenegro as we worked our way to the Bay of Kotor.....

There was definitely WAY more traffic than we expected and at the 1 1/2 hour mark (when we should have been to our destination) we grabbed a breakfast at restaurant called Tramontana in Morinj. Right as we sat down,  it POURED - thunder and lightening and lots of rain. We had eggs, toast, and (very strong) coffee, sitting among mostly men (at 10:30am on a Monday - shouldn't they be working?) drinking coffee and smoking. Tramontana was a beautiful restaurant, right on the bay, with a great outdoor (and indoor) area - it's too bad that it was so gray and rainy as the patio would have been a lovely ( and less snoky) place to have a meal.

By the time we left, both of us felt that our heads were buzzing - not sure if it was from the caffeine in the coffee or the nicotine from all the cigarettes! 😆

By now the traffic was out of control. Seriously - crazy. Cars completely stopped. People driving the wrong way. We tried to continue, but it was beyond crazy - plus the rain. By now it was about 1:30 and we were still nowhere near our destination, so we made the decision to head back to Dubrovnik. 

We did get a cool photo opportunity while sitting in traffic though......there we are....in the car! 😃

But why go back the way we came? We drove-in along the coast, so we thought we'd go back a different way - through the mountains of Bosnia - to get a different perspective. Plus, GPS had the route home as an hour shorter - shortcut! Doubly, we'd get a passport stamp of Bosnia - an unexpected bonus!

So we turned around (seriously, it took about 20 minutes to do this) and we had open road.... awesome! We had wonderful views as well.

The route told us to bear left at a certain point - okay. Suzanne looked at the map - the road led through Bosnia to Dubrovnik - okay. So one we went - through some beautiful farmland....

The road did keep getting smaller......

.....eventually one guy driving the other way stopped us and said something in his native language (Bosnian? Serbian? Croatian? Montenegrin?), which we didn't speak, of course. We tried using Google Translate - and he said something about a "small border crossing." Okay, well, we had our passports, so we're good. Thanks Friendly Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian/Montenegrin Man! Onward we go!

Then as the road was getting even smaller, Friendly Guy #2 came along, younger and with much more English, also stopped us and explained that yes, there is a border-crossing into Bosnia up ahead,  but it is only for local traffic. Huh. (Now technically GPS wasn't wrong, was it....) He also gave us directions on how to get to Dubrovnik another way over the mountains and though Bosnia, so we turned around - again! 😏

So back through the farmlands, bear right instead of left, and go through a border crossing that isn't just for locals.  We were a bit gun-shy at this point and asked the border-patrol guy if we could get through Dubrovnik on the road, and he pretty much just demanded to see the papers for our car (not sure why).  For some reason every time we crossed a border, we had to show our passports twice at two different stopping points, and when we went through the second passport area into Bosnia, that guy was much friendlier and assured us that we could take the road to Dubrovnik with all open crossings. Yay!

It had been raining on-and-off all day, but then it started pouring again, so we didn't get many photos.  Here's the other thing that added to our confusion driving back to Dubrovnik - on the map, it did not show that we were in Bosnia, but rather Republika Srpska. Hmmm...what's that? 

Wikipedia to the rescue!

Republika Srpska shares international borders with Croatia to the north, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast. Within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL) marks Republika Srpska's administrative division with the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and essentially follows the front lines at the end of the Bosnian War with some adjustments (most importantly in the western part of the country and around Sarajevo) as defined by the Dayton Agreement. The total length of the IEBL is approximately 1,080 km. The IEBL is an administrative demarcation uncontrolled by military or police and there is free movement across it.

Around 5pm, we were "home" with four new passport stamps!😀

It was still raining, so we opened our windows, enjoyed the cooler weather, and enjoyed a simple dinner once again enjoying the view.

So definitely not the day we set out to do, but an interesting one nonetheless. Tonight with the cooler temperatures we will sleep with the windows open and the sound of rain! 😃