Towards Montenegro

  Mon - Wed 18th - 20th Sept

Usually we avoid paying for toll motorways, making the observation that the journey is all part of the experience. There are sometimes when you just want to ‘get there’ and the next part of the coastal trip is going to be on the motorway with a 2-3 hour journey on it, that will save another 2 hours if we stay off.

So at kilometre marker 245 we settled down until km 490 and enjoyed the open road with few lorries and not so many cars either. The overdrive was engaged confidently, knowing that it wasn’t leaking and we sat at about 65mph which is roughly 110kph in decimal.

The minutes ticked by into 10 mins and then thirty but as it was hot, the windows and front flaps were open, so there was no chance to catchup with The Archers or take advantage of the Spotify premium, bought on offer, especially for this trip.

We played a game of spot the unusual car registration plate. By this I mean that we ignored the common HR (Croatia), SLO (Slovenia), D (Deutsland) and A (Austria) plates, looking for something a bit unusual.

There were quite a few BIH (Bosnia and Herzegovina), even a couple of UA (Ukraine) but it was ages before we saw just one S (Sweden) and one UK/GB car.

Eventually we stopped to view the Pelješac bridge. As Wikipedia describes it, “this provides a fixed link from the southeastern Croatian semi-enclave to the rest of the country, while bypassing Bosnia and Herzegovina at Neum”.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

As we looked at the bridge we talked to a couple from Germany. He was the typical northern German who gets up really close when telling you something and makes his point by slightly pushing you with the side of his body. I recognise this from work years ago.

The toll fee was surprisingly’ cheap’ at €23. Apparently everything has risen In price with the introduction of the new currency.

Eventually we got to far more scenic surroundings and headed for the beautiful natural harbour of Slano, where we finally found a pitch after a couple of rejections. These Germans really do fill up these spots but also a couple from the UK are on the next door site and have been for a month. It’s easy to see that they’ve been here for some time.

These sites are really the terraced ‘gardens’ of the houses that line the shore. It’s very underdeveloped and a beautiful spot. 

We walked into the small village and had fish stew for dinner and the next day bought bread and burek for lunch. Then served our own chicken, pepper and courgette on the terrace for tea.

In between all that we walked the fifty paces to the sea and had some good long swims and sat and watched the small world go by.