Montenegro

Because there are a few countries accessible by day trip from Croatia, we decided to spend two days of our trip visiting other places. Our first day trip was to Montenegro, and we learned that the name comes from “black mountains” (which surround the entire country). Montenegro is a very small country, and we were able to see a significant amount of it by visiting three cities on our day trip.

The first thing we saw was a church built in the middle of a bay. The story behind the church was that a few fishermen went out in their boat and saw a painting of Mary in the water. They brought it home to pray to it, but the next morning it had disappeared. They went back out in their boat and saw the same painting in the water, so they took it as a sign that they were meant to build a church in that place. They built a man-made island in the spot where they had found the painting, and named the church “Lady on the Rocks.”

After we had taken a boat to and from the island, we walked around the rest of the town. It was very small and there wasn’t much going on because we were not there during peak season, but it was nice to see a small town in a different country.

The second city we went to, Kotor, is considered the most beautiful city in Montenegro. We went on a tour and learned the history of the city. One of the most interesting things we learned is that Orthodox and Catholic people shared a church because there weren’t enough spaces to hold religious services, so they put their differences aside and built a church that had two sides: one side for Orthodox services, and one side for Catholic mass. We also learned that Montenegro was ruled by Venice for a long time, and that Montenegro speaks the same language as Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia (but they all call their languages by different names and get offended if people say that it’s the same language). After the tour, we got black caramel tea at a café to warm up, then walked up a mountain to see a church built at the top of the hill. It was cold and rainy, but it felt nice to hike after spending most of the day in the car driving around from city to city.

In the third city we went to, the main attraction was lunch. We ate at a delicious local restaurant that the guide recommended, and we tried a few new things. I had an alcoholic pear cider, which was delicious, and for lunch we had roasted lamb with potatoes. I had never had lamb before, and I really enjoyed it. After lunch, we got back in the car to drive back to Croatia. We had an amazing day in Montenegro, and I’m so glad we were able to take a day trip to a country I otherwise may not have visited!