October 19, 2016 by Rae

Getting Orientated in Barcelona

I don’t know if it’s residual jet lag despite my having been in Europe four months, but I tend to wake up about five hours after going to sleep, read a bit, and then manage to sleep for another two to three hours. I went to sleep around 2AM this morning and when I groggily woke up some time later, I thought there was no way it would be 7:00. It was 7:30! I couldn’t believe how dark my room was. I heard my host get up at some point, but managed to get back to sleep until about 10:00, when things got really loud in the building. Not a great night, but not terrible either.

Since I had no food with me and hadn’t eaten since my sandwich last night, that was my first priority. I pulled up directions on my phone to the nearest tourist info centre so I could get a paper map and headed out.

I’ve chosen to approach Barcelona rather like I did London. I never thought I’d get here and there isn’t anything I feel I must do. Moreover, I am not on a vacation budget and having spoiled myself rotten in the last four months in the affordable Balkans, it doesn’t feel like a punishment to do Barcelona on a shoestring. So I’m happy with spending my free time ambling around and seeing what I come across. I will take a free walking tour tomorrow, though.

This church is on my street.

I’d done my research on mealtimes in Barcelona and knew that I wouldn’t do better than a coffee and pastry for breakfast at 11AM. So I popped into the first café I found (at the end of my street). Prices were terrifying, but it is what it is. A normal coffee was a small mugful and had milk in it, a pleasant surprise on both counts.

I made my way to Plaça de Catalunya, an important square in downtown Barcelona on the edge of the old city. I knew I would find there not just the tourist info centre, but also a SIM card for my phone. I’ve been doing without phone service since I arrived in Sarajevo, not having been in any one country long enough to make it worth getting one, and I’ve really missed it. Since I will be in Spain at least two months, it was worth getting one here.

Here is a fountain in Catalonia Square:

And one of the many buildings around it.

There was a huge lineup at the tourist info centre, which is underground, so I just grabbed a free map and went back above ground to Movistar’s Mobile World Centre store in the hope of getting a SIM card. The set up was similar to a Telcel store in Mexico, where you go to an info desk to say what you want and are assigned a number and a queue based on your enquiry. This first attendant asked me if I had my passport as, like in Bulgaria, your SIM has to be registered. It was then a longish wait to be told they were out of rechargeable mobile SIMs. Since the attendant got snappy with me when I asked her at one point to please slow down, I was glad to have an excuse not to give Movistar my business. But the attendant did redeem herself a bit when she said that the El Cortes Inglés department store next door has a telecom section on the seventh floor, but she had no info beyond that.

I went into the fancy schmancy store and up seven very slow escalators to find a whole floor devoted to telecom with counters by different companies. I’d done some preliminary research and knew that everyone has comparable prices and coverage. So when an attendant from Vodafone asked if she could help me, that was that. For 21 euro, I got a rechargeable SIM with 2GB good for one month, 100 minutes anywhere in Spain, and I think unlimited text messaging. I asked if I could get an Almería number and she said that the numbers are good for all of Spain. She registered the SIM using my passport info and then did her thing to put the SIM in and get it set up. The process was much quicker than it is in Mexico and comparable to what I experienced in the Balkans.

Phone sorted, I headed to the Gothic Quarter, the old part of Barcelona.

I wasn’t really “feeling” how touristy and full of expensive shops the area was so I started to duck into narrow alleys to get a tiny bit off the tourist track.

But it was hard to get lost. 🙂

I LOVE Gothic architecture. I’ve seen some gorgeous churches in the Balkans, but there’s just something about Gothic design that makes my heart skip a beat.

I’m not sure how I managed to fill three whole hours from leaving home, but I did! 2PM is the start of lunch hour here and I knew to look for a “menú del día,” a three-course menu for a set price, usually around 10 euro. I’d seen a few menus by the time I was ready to eat and had gotten an idea of what to expect. So I just went into the first restaurant I saw that had a menu with things that sounded good and that would be good value, that had no English on the menu, and that didn’t have tourists!

For my first course, I went with Greek salad. I wasn’t expecting just tomatoes and cheese, but it was very good and the included bread was perfect for mopping up the dressing. Yes, that’s a beer behind my plate, included in my 10 Euro cost! I got the beer because it was more monetary value than a soft drink and, well, you know me and beer. 🙂

My second course wasn’t worth a photo, just soggy frozen fries with a very generous portion of moist grilled chicken breasts without any sauce or seasonings. Like in the Balkans, there was oil and vinegar on the table, so I used the vinegar (balsamic) to spice up my meal a bit and make the fries nicer. The chicken really hit the spot!

There were a lot of options for dessert, including cake and fresh fruit. The waiter and I shared a laugh when, after he listed all the dessert options, I said, “The first one, please,” and he had to remember what it was!

It was a vanilla cake with nuts and really good!

And the menu. Which, thankfully, was in Spanish, not Catalan! The first thing on the menu is peas sautéd with ham. I was surprised by how many people were eating that as they were not even nice fresh sweet peas. The first item for the second course is rabbit and I have to say I was tempted to try it.

One thing I will like about eating out in Barcelona that I also liked in London is that you don’t have to tip!

I then decided to amble over to Barcelona’s most famed landmark, the Sagrada Familia Basilica.

“A coffee a day is the key to happiness.”

These little motorcycles seem to be a very popular mode of transportation in Barcelona.

Now, this is how you do an Arch of Triumph!

This part of Barcelona is a feast for the eyes!

I was rather underwhelmed by the Sagrada Familia Basilica…

Until I got closer!

I was tired and had about a 5KM walk back home so the plan was to route myself home from here with my phone. But my phone went from 20% battery capacity to dead as I was doing that!!! My street was not on the map! I decided that I would use my map to route myself back to Catalonia Square and from there try to retrace my steps from the morning. Once I got closer to Poble Sec, I could ask for directions if I got stuck.

This is the scooter I’d buy. 🙂

I like seeing the name of my country when out of it.

Catalan really does look like a hybrid of French and Spanish. “Sweet Catalonia, homeland of my heart…” and off to Google translate I go. 😀 Okay, I did better than it as I don’t agree with the translation although it’s on the right track. “Sweet Catalonia, homeland of my heart, when I’m away from you, I die of longing.”

I love the random owl on the building!

“Her only crime was to be a free woman.” Need to check out this book!

Such quirky buildings!

So many scooters! This is back at Catalonia Place.

From there, I knew I had to take the famous La Rambla pedestrian street. I racked my brain trying to remember the name of the street I’d taken to turn off onto La Rambla and suddenly remembered that it was similar to the name of one of Contessa‘s dogs, Carme (the dog is Carmeh!). From there, I very slowly retraced my steps, looking for familiar landmarks and names I could remember.

I did really well until I got to one large boulevard that did not look familiar at all. I was in an area that was still on the map, but which did not have the names of the little streets. I was able to locate that boulevard and then another big one that I recognised, which was in the opposite direction than I’d turned down the first boulevard. I turned around, made my way to the second boulevard, and from there, I recognised the café where I’d had breakfast. Behold, the church on my street! 😀

It was a lovely low-key first day in Barcelona. I’ll admit that I’m having a bit of sticker shock, which is tamping down my enthusiasm a bit. I wish I could have made the 11AM walking tour of the Gothic Quarter today, but it will happen tomorrow and I will have more juicy details to share rather than just general impressions. But I am very happy to be here, thrilled that I can understand people and they me, the weather is gorgeous, there’s palm trees, and the city is so much more walkable than many Balkan cities I’ve been to (sidewalks!!!).

I’m going to attempt to call it an early night so that I can get the bulk of tomorrow’s work done before my tour… I have two nice workspaces here, the kitchen table and the terrace, so I should be comfortable.

October 16, 2016 by Rae

Skopje Walking Tour

I awoke to a downpour. The forecast promised a clearing during the time of my walking tour, but I wasn’t holding my breath and was glad it wasn’t cold. I got up fairly early so I could get a bit of work done before the tour, but actually lost track of time and before I knew it, it was 9:30, with the tour being at 10:00 and a 20-minute walk away!

I managed to get out the door in about five minutes since I was dressed. It’s a good thing I’d scoped out the starting point of the tour yesterday, Memorial House of Mother Teresa, and knew a fairly direct way to get there. I also knew that these tours never start on time so I would be fine. Sure enough, I arrived around 9:48 and found a dry spot to wait for the tour to start.

Mother Teresa is thought of as being Albanian, but she was born in Skopje and lived here till she was 18 before going to Ireland to learn English. More on her later in the tour as this was not our first stop.

This church is brand new.

Our guide, Miho of Skopje Walks, was a little early and asked a gal from London and me if we’d mind waiting a bit to see if anyone else turned up. A gal from Poland working in Skopje did and then just as we were ready to set off, two Portuguese gals came running.

Our first bit of information was about the pedestrian street we were standing on, Macedonia Street. It is a fairly new street, about 100 years old, and was built to carry the last Ottoman ruler of Macedonia from the old railway station to the new one. An old housebound lady with a balcony overlooking this street saw her address change four times in ninety years, depending on who was running Macedonia. Even yesterday, when the weather was good, the street was deserted, nothing like the pedestrian zones of Sofia, Plovdiv, Belgrade, or Sarajevo.

This is the old railway station and now a museum.

The derelict look is intentional and along with the clocks commemorates the last major earthquake in the city, dating back to 1963. Skopje has had three major earthquakes in its recorded history and it was completely demolished in each one. So there is very little that is truly “old” in Skopje and perhaps this is why it has no identity of its own. Miho calls the problem with Skopje “copy/paste syndrome” in that the city is full of things copied from other cities. I said that it reminds me of Las Vegas and Miho said that it’s 100 times worse because Vegas, where he has been, only has the Strip that is full of kitsch while the whole of Skopje looks like that!

This clock shows the time of the earthquake, just past 4:30AM.

Miho pronounced Skopje “Skopie-ya,” rhyming it with Sofia. It is Скопје in Macedonia Cyrillic, which does not have the “backward R” for the “ya” sound (я), which is the last sound in Sofia. I’ve been saying and hearing “Skope-ye.” So I suppose there are different ways of saying it.

Miho was not afraid to express his embarrassment of the city and the mismanagement of funds for the “Skopje 2014” project that saw heaps of money put into statues and monuments when the money could have had better uses. There is no rhyme or reason to where the statues have gone up. Take this bull, for example, a common symbol in front of stock exchanges all over the world. In Skopje, it is in front of a shoe store and a few blocks away from the Skopje stock exchange.

We headed back to the Memorial House of Mother Teresa and I finally noticed the front of the church. I have to say that this building is really beautiful!

I really love the “scales” on the domes.

Miho took us through this door so we could have a laugh. I wasn’t able to get a good shot of the area, but it’s not closed in! That door does absolutely nothing.

We went inside and the curator gave us some information about Mother Teresa. This is a model of what her childhood home would have looked like. There is plenty of evidence that the family was well off.

This is a letter she wrote in English, the language of her religious order.

She officially became a saint last month.

This is a copy of her Nobel Peace Prize certificate.

We went upstairs to the chapel with its unfortunately leak roof. The filigree design pays tribute to the artistry of the Ottomans and if you look closely, you can see doves and fish in the design.

We then headed towards the main square and passed two statues that make Miho angry. One is a monument to the shoeshiners of Skopje.

The other to beggars. Each cost something like 35,000 Euros! As he said, that money could have been put to much better use.

This is one of the few truly “old” buildings in Skopje, dating back to… 1920. It was built by a pharmacy baron and is now retail and office space.

While this is known to be a statue of Alexander the Great, the official title is Warrior on a Horse.

Just off of it, these markers show the site of where Mother Teresa’s childhood home was located. It was destroyed in the earthquake of ’63. I found these markers well done.

Here is a good example of copy/paste syndrome, just a random arch of triumph not symbolising anything in particular and in a random location.

We then got to the river. This pirate ship, too big for the river, embarrasses Miho as well. This was the first time that he actually flat out said rather than implied that he’s embarrassed by something the city has built.

This is the Museum of Archeology, one of the rare things he got really excited about, so I decided to visit it after the tour if I had time. I agree with him that the mix of neoclassical and modern architecture is stunning. This is one of the few buildings Skopje got right.

This is the Bridge of Civilisations, built in 2013. So many statues…

Skopje is running out of place for its statues, so it’s putting them on roofs and ledges. I am not being facetious.

This is the Stone Bridge and actually very old, dating back to 1451. It has been added to and repaired, but is essentially original.

This was the only statue that spoke to me. It is of a Paeonian Priestess.

There is even a statue in the filthy river, commemorating that there was once a beach there.

Yes, that is a woman in a red bikini. Which reminds me, all the statues in Skopje have clothes.

This was my least favourite stop. To keep birds from crapping on the fountains in the area and also discourage stray dogs, there is a very high pitch whistle playing constantly. I could hear it clear as a bell and it rattled the fillings in my teeth.

This is a monument to the mother of Alexander the Great, showing him while she was pregnant, he was a newborn, she was breastfeeding him, and when he was a toddler.

Behind it is another fountain, with horses. This city really has no rhyme or reason to it!

Here’s another angle on that mother of Alexander the Great fountain.

We then went into the “Old Bazaar,” which is what passes as the Old Town in Skopje. It was apparently a pretty lively place once upon a time, but now a good amount of it is deserted and what isn’t is full of shops selling tourist tchotchkes. We were advised to have lunch here as it is, surprisingly, the less expensive part of town to eat at. Which reminds me, Miho confirmed that Skopje (not sure about Macedonia in general) is about as expensive as Western Europe, which explains why I feel like I’ve been bleeding money with nothing to show for it.

The flagstones are actually old. I forget how old, but I think they date back to the Middle Ages at least.

He took us to a little bar/restaurant for a rest. I had to go up and down these steps to use the bathroom. They are very common all over the Balkans and Max had them in the main house.

The other guests barely touched their complimentary glass of rakia, but I downed the whole thing. This reminded me of one I had in Bulgaria as it was very peaty and Scotch-like.

We then went into something I should have gotten the spelling of, but let’s go with “Ahn.” Think of it as an Ottoman roadhouse with lodging and food.

There would have been a fountain in the central courtyard.

This one has gone through many different lives, including being a jail, hence the bars on the windows. Now, there are a lot of lawyers offices and cafés.

The Old Bazaar would be easy to get lost in. I am shocked that I had zero desire to wander around in it after my tour, a case of having seen much better Old Towns like these in my travels.

So much of the area was deserted, just like every other part of Skopje I’ve visited so far.

I’ve kept meaning to grab a picture of these address number plaques, white on a dark blue background. I have seen them everywhere I’ve been in the Balkans and can’t believe I forgot to ask a guide if they are issued by the government or something.

When we started the tour, Miho said we would not be able to go up to the fortress because it was storming. The fortress is the highest part of the city and he worries about lightning strikes up there when people are carrying umbrellas. But, thankfully, the rain let up fairly early on in our tour and the sky was clearing by the time we approached the fortress. So we were able to head there. First, though, he explained how there are three levels of walls to the city and that they are more symbolic, to show that people were headed into the administrative part of Skopje, than for fortification purposes.

This is a football stadium.

After the first recorded earthquake, Skopje was moved about 5KM from its original location, which is that hill in the distance.

There is a giant cross on top of this hill, just about twice as tall as the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro.

The fortress is large, but there wasn’t much to access. Having frolicked in a lot of ruins recently, I was not temped to return after the tour.

We then headed to this mosque, which was once one of the most beautiful mosques of the region.

We went inside and were told we could take photographs.

After the last earthquake, the dome was damaged and had to be rebuilt. We’ve lost the knowledge of how to build a perfect dome so, as you can see in this picture, there is an imperfect joint.

Getting in and out of our shoes was tricky as we had to step out of them on the stone part while bringing our feet onto the carpeted part.

The imam was not present when we went in and so the dress code wasn’t strict. Miho said the imam is actually pretty laid back and doesn’t make ladies cover their hair or shoulders, just their legs. Because of the weather, we were all covered from the neck to our feet anyway!

There are high tech bollards that lower for two hours a day to allow delivery vans access to the area.

This is where we finished our tour, a full hour later than expected. Miho had said the tour would take 2.5 to 3 hours and it ended up being a full 4! We finished by a church he told us to visit, but, frankly, I’ve had my fill of churches. I gave him a 300MKD tip since these “free” tours are tip based and then headed off to find an ATM so I could afford to buy lunch. I cannot believe how fast my money has gone here.

Finding an ATM took ages! The first one I tried was out of money and then I had to go back to the main square and poke around there to find one that was working. I took out another 2000MKD (50CAD) and went back to the Old Bazaar to get lunch. The first place I passed served pizza and that worked for me. I hadn’t eaten since about 8AM and had had that shot of rakia, so I really needed food and wasn’t in the mood to hunt for something else, especially when I saw that this joint had a wood fired oven.

The pizza was very good, just needing maybe one more minute in the oven to crisp up the crust, but the sauce, cheese, and sprinkle of oregano were spot on. I will miss Balkan pizza!

I had this Macedonian beer with it. The price of the pizza, 150MKD or 3.75CAD, was very reasonable for the amount I got and felt pretty close to what I paid in Serbia and Bulgaria for a comparable amount. But the beer was a whopping 3.25CAD! I would never have ordered a beer had I known it would be that expensive.

I was happier when I paid the ice cream vendor I went to next as the cost was just 0.50CAD for a small ice cream that I would have paid 1.50CAD for in Kotor. I went with straight up hazelnut and it was really yummy!

It was getting really late, so I then hoofed it to the Museum of Archeology, where you are only allowed to take pictures inside the lobby.

Admission to the museum was 300MKD (7.50CAD), very steep compared to other museums I’ve been to. But holy smokes! I finally found something in Skopje to wholeheartedly recommend! What an incredible collection of artifacts! As a history major, I’ve read so much about this part of the world and how people lived, but to see actual artifacts from here was surreal. The rooms were themed, with coins, jewellery, pottery, glassware, weapons, and more. There were also beautiful paintings depicting scenes of everyday life. There wasn’t quite enough signage in English though. All the artifacts had English labels, but there were large informational panels that did not have a translation, which was a bit frustrating as I could pick out just enough to get an idea of what the panel was about and be curious to know more. I kicked myself for having deleted my Bulgarian dictionary app from my phone.

Which brings me to the unpleasant part of visiting the Skopje Museum of Archeology — I got followed by security guards the whole time. The second I pulled out my phone to look for the dictionary, one rushed me and said I could not “make pictures.” The attention made it very difficult to relax and truly enjoy my visit. But all that aside, this museum is the only part of Skopje I really want to remember besides my flat!

It was starting to spit when I came out of the museum, so I took that as a sign that I should head home. I crossed the Bridge of Civilisations again.

It would make more of an impact if it wasn’t one of several bridges and was in a more central location. And wasn’t surrounded by 50 billion other statutes, monuments, and fountains.

But I really do like her a lot. There was more about her in the museum, including the actual artifacts she’s holding… and her skull.

There have been a lot of “revolutions” in Skopje, with people protesting the government. The latest one had folks filling balloons with paint and then throwing the balloons at monuments built for Skopje 2014. So all that paint over the monuments isn’t artistic expression, it’s a tantrum. What a waste. Miho had stronger words to say on this subject.

Here’s that “old” building in full.

I am really glad I did the walking tour today as I got a lot of context about Skopje and Macedonia. Miho was a fantastic guide! But unlike with other walking tours I’ve done that left me itchy to explore on my own, I’d had my fill of Skopje by the end of this one. This is not a city I would recommend. There is no point to it, it’s filthy, and it’s expensive. It’s fine for a day or two if you’re flying in and out of Macedonia, but I really wish I’d had time to go to Ohrid instead.

As it turns out, I’m flying out at 6PM tomorrow, not 16:00 (4PM) and have the apartment till 2PM. I’ll have some work to do in the morning, then we’ll see if I feel like venturing out to see more of Skopje… It is surreal to think that I’ll be in Barcelona tomorrow night. I’ll be there in just about 26 hours.

October 15, 2016 by Rae

Skopje Fails To Make Much of an Impression

I wish that my deadlines this weekend would have allowed me to take the tour of Skopje rather than tomorrow because this city feels like a hard nut to crack.

I slept quite well last night thanks to the really comfy bed and woke up realising that I’m reaching travel burnout in that all I wanted to do was spend the day working in my jammies. I had zero desire to go out and explore. By about 1:30, I’d done the pressing work for today and forced myself to dress and head out.

My flat is located in a neighbourhood about 1KM from the centre of Skopje. The neighbourhood feels very liveable, being quite well kept and full of restaurants and shops. I decided to head to the centre to orientate myself ahead of tomorrow’s proper sightseeing.

This is the bakery where I stopped for lunch yesterday, Silbo.

Across from it is this structure, which is a bit of a landmark for me. You can see it is quite run down.

As a stationary and office supplies nut, a store devoted to Staedtler and 3M products made me drool!

Yet another church. I’ve seen so many churches and mosques since I got to the Balkans!

The city felt dead. There was very little open. I wanted a cheap fast food joint, like a pizza place, for a late lunch but I met one shut door after another. This is the first city I’ve been in that appears to shut down on the weekends. I hope tomorrow won’t be a wash… I finally found a hamburger joint that was open. The owner quickly switched to English and apologised for not having an English menu. He was delighted that I was able to handle the Macedonian menu without needing help. I asked for onion rings inside of fries and he upgraded me for free! I’m sad to report that was the highlight of my day. *wry grin* Lunch was very expensive, on par with what a fast food burger combo is in Canada, 8CAD, and I wish I’d noticed the prices before committing, even though my meal was very tasty. But it ended up being the only non sit down type restaurant I found in two whole hours of ambling, not counting bakeries, and I’m rather sick of puff pastry. So, really, it was that or my leftover pasta from last night and then I would have had to find dinner food…

There are some nice buildings in Skopje, but I have yet to see anything that I know is genuinely old.

I thought that the colours add a lot of panache and visual appeal to an otherwise ugly building.

The red double decker buses really made me laugh.

Some of Skopje’s MANY statues. I will explain about that after my walking tour tomorrow. If said tour doesn’t happen, I’ll cobble together something from my internet research. 🙂

*squints at label* This is Hristo Uzunov, a Bulgarian revolutionary.

Some of the nicer graffiti I’ve seen in my lifetime.

Or maybe the building was designed that way? A question to ask a guide.

Here’s Skopje’s famous Alexander the Great statue.

That’s all I saw of note today after two whole hours of walking. Skopje is really gritty to the point of looking and feeling absolutely filthy. I didn’t enjoy the bit of the downtown pedestrian zone I encountered and was not tempted to stop for a beer or coffee. I really hope that the tour happens tomorrow and that it will leave me wishing I had more time to give this city. As things stand right now, I don’t feel that I would have missed much by not coming. However, I do want to stress that everyone I’ve encountered has been welcoming and friendly and done their best to serve me as well as they could despite the language barrier.

I’m off to get some more work done so that I can focus on exploring tomorrow!

October 13, 2016 by Rae

A Stopover in Lovely Prizren, Kosovo

Kosovo is another area that was recently under major conflict and that has negative connotations overseas. It is also a disputed territory in that while it declared its independence in 2008 and is recognised as a nation by many, it is seen as still part of Serbia by Serbia, Russia, and others. I wanted to travel here to see what it’s like and how it differs from Serbia, but I did not want it to be another “conflict tour.”

I picked Prizren, a small and ancient town that is considered an underrated gem, because it is en route between Kotor and Skopje and also because a day here would be sufficient. So today was all about enjoying the sites and sounds of Prizren without delving into any bloody history. There aren’t any museums to speak of or many attractions besides many mosques and a fortress high above the city. So what a perfect place to spend a day after a very, very late night. 🙂

I was up by about 9:30 this morning, tired but thankfully not hung over. I went down to the lobby area hoping to get a map of town or at least some basic directions and pointers, but there was no one at the desk. I chose to wait a bit since there was a nice book about Prizren for me to leaf through.

One of the staff came in after a few minutes and asked if I wanted breakfast. Yes, breakfast was included. OMG! He brought me a coffee, a basket of lightly toasted bread, and a plate with a lutenitsa-type spicy red pepper spread, a small dish of sour cream, a wedge of cheese, a few slices of sausage, and a dish of a hazelnut-chocolate spread (not like Nutella, the two flavours are separate). It might not sound like much, but it was quite the spread! I loved the pepper spread mixed with the sour cream.

When I was done, he had me settle up my bill (13 euro per night!) and then pulled out a map with all the highlights on it. I decided to start by going up to the fortress so I could walk off some of my breakfast.

Prizen’s touristy core is small and is divided by a river. You can see the fortress in the background at the top of the shorter mountain.

Like Sarajevo, this is a city of mosques.

This is where we had dinner last night. The TripAdvisor reviews are pretty negative, but I had a great time and good meal. I think it’s because I ate what the local people eat.

I found the road up to the fortress and was amused that someone had graffitied some directional signage.

It was a very steep climb! This man didn’t seem to break a sweat, just taking tiny steps until he got there.

This was the first really sunny day I’ve had since my first morning in Sarajevo and I was so happy to pull out my sunglasses!

It was so much fun to poke around the old ruins! There were workers on site doing restoration, so I suspect that there will be a lot more to this place in a few years.

It was a very steep walk back down!

Someone had a fire recently.

This is the ubiquitous skip you see all over the Balkans, but this was the first time I’ve seen one painted!

This is what I mean about Albanian obviously having some Romance language roots. In Mexico, this sign would read Restaurante Familiar Verona…

This is what Google Translate has to say about this: “I am here for you are free struggled and sacrificed to live among you at the forefront of the freedom of the motherland!”

I stopped for a coffee by the river at a place with no English speakers or menu for me to point to. Do I know how to pick ’em or what? I guessed, correctly, that coffee would be “kah-fay” in Albanian and the server said, “Espresso?” Yay for Italian, the universal language of coffee. 🙂

I then walked across the river and found a little temporary artisan market. Lots of pretty things! Thank goodness I’m committed to traveling light.

I continued walking and met Mr. Zanzi, a shoeshiner who wanted me to tell you about him! He spoke very good English and knows many other languages, including Spanish! He told me to put a foot up onto his shoeshine stand. I was wearing my Keens and so curious as to what he wanted to do with them. Well…

Over the course of about 15 minutes, he talked my ear off about the people he’s met over the years (including a Mountie who came to have his shoes shined daily!), and how he lost everything in the war and now has to shine shoes to support his diabetic wife. While he was telling me all this, he was brushing my shoes and applying what I’m assuming is polish to the rubber part before spraying a sealant over everything.

I could not believe what he did to my sandals! Look at how new they look!

I’ve covered a lot of miles in these and so the rubber was dulled and the fabric was dingy. I am absurdly pleased with Mr. Zanzi’s ministration to my Keens. The price was what I was willing to pay. I had 3 Euro in change and I know that was a lot based on how grateful he was and what 3 Euro can buy here, but that’s what his work was worth to me and I was happy to pass on some of the generosity I have received.

I then wandered into the non-touristy part of town and was fascinated by the mix of new and old construction and the narrow streets. Like Sarajevo, the size of Prizren makes it very walkable, but there are few sidewalks.

The license plates here have RKS on them, further separating Kosovo from Serbia, which has SRB on the plate.

My host keeps referring to this one as the Stone Bridge.

Turns out that is its name, not just a description.

This church is a UNESCO protected site and appears to be undergoing renovations.

This is a clocktower.

The amount of overheard wiring in the Balkans astounds me.

Look at the odd little bubbles on the domes.

I made my way back to the area of the Stone Bridge to find a light lunch, ideally a burger.

This is the bar where we went out last night. And I didn’t notice when I took this picture that the guy in the background, right at the window, is one of the guys I met there!

I don’t think I’ve ever caught two minarets in one shot before.

I found a burger joint! It wasn’t a fantastic burger like I had in Belgrade, but it hit the spot. I liked that it had sweet bread and butter pickles in it, a flavour I’ve missed! The cost was only 1.80 Euro (2.75CAD).

This is a traditional house style:

I went back to the hostel for the rest of the afternoon to rest, work on the blog post for yesterday, and find my accommodation in Skopje. Around 5:00, I went downstairs to get a recommendation for dinner and then headed out again.

This is the hammam (Turkish baths), but they are not functioning.

I loved this display of rubber stamps in a shop literally attached to the hammam.

My host recommended the Fish House restaurant, especially the trout, which sounded good. I love trout, but rarely have occasion to have it.

They only had a half litre of wine, not just a glass. It was very good!

I ordered the Greek salad because I knew that the trout would be just trout. I wish they had crumbled the cheese over it, but otherwise, yum! I am going to miss the produce out here so much.

And here’s dinner. I bet Croft and Contessa are drooling. 🙂 It was so good! I haven’t yet mastered how to eat a whole fish, though, and how to deal with the bones so I must have looked like a savage. I had a bite of the potatoes, but they were cold and not to my liking (I’m really starting to give up on potatoes in my advancing age) and instead had some of that bread. I actually ate some of the fish skin, something I’ve never done before!

As I was finishing up, I heard, “Hello, my friend from Canada!” I looked up and it was Mr. Zanzi waving at me as he walked by!

Now the bill. Y’all might want to sit down for this one.

Yeah. That’s just under 11CAD!!!

I was initially put off by the price of accommodation in Prizren (there wasn’t a single hotel that was less than what I’d pay in Canada, hence why I went with the hostel) and almost didn’t come because I thought everything would be expensive. Nope!

I have to be out the door early tomorrow for a 9:00 AM bus, so I decided to call it a night, pausing to listen to the adhan from this minaret and to watch the sunset.

October 9, 2016 by Rae

A Salvaged Day in Kotor

Let me tell you, I’ll take the adhan at 5:30 am over church bells at 8:00 am any day… I had a late night and that was a rather rude awakening! I tried to go back to sleep, but failed. So I got up and my only thought was food. I woke up in the middle of the night to raid the peanut butter jar! I can’t believe I’ve woken up twice in as many nights to eat. I’m pretty sure I’ve never done that in my life!

I’m in Kotor for three days and there’s endless rain in the forecast. Today seemed to be the lightest day of it and my best bet for heading out and exploring as it would also be the warmest day. Moreover, I needed food! It made sense to go find some breakfast and then come back with some groceries as there is a conveniently located fridge right by my hostel room.

I debated what to wear as I knew I was going to get soaked and settled on my iPanema sandals (gals, remind me to do a shoe review), a pair of jeans, a long-sleeve top, my fleece hoodie, and the “rain coat” that was wonderful in London but has since failed me. 🙁 I thought I might be able to pick up a cheap umbrella “in town,” about 3KM away. I specifically picked this hostel because it’s walking distance to Old Town Kotor, so I was in the mindset of walking there this morning, needing a leg stretch after yesterday’s long bus ride. The rain had let up somewhat, so I figured the stroll would do me some good. I obviously get stupid when I’m hungry because any sane person without adequate rain gear would have taken a taxi to as near an umbrella shop as possible. No… I walked the whole way, it started to pour halfway there, and I arrived soaked in Kotor.

The directions to my hostel said it’s above the cemetery. Literally!

Even English-only speakers should be able to recognise what part of this sign made my French self cringe.

Let me pause here to say that I’ve never been a fan of umbrellas as I tend to be in climates that are rainy and windy. I don’t really have a lot of extra room in my luggage, so I decided I would get a cheap folding umbrella along the way if I needed one. Today was apparently the day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So how did I come to be in Kotor? The Serbian couple I met in Zemun told me about it and it seemed a good alternative to very expensive Dubrovnik as a scenic destination on the Adriatic Coast. I had hoped this would be a bit of a working holiday by the sea, but it’s not looking that way yet.

The mist does give Kotor quite a bit of atmosphere. Here, I am approaching the walled Old Town.

There are three gates into the city. This is the main one.

I wandered a bit looking for that elusive place that serves both real food before lunch and coffee. I was shocked that I found it, a cosy restaurant called “Museum Cafe” that serves a full menu all day and knows how to make me a coffee with just “a little” milk. I had two coffees by the time my delicious balsamic vinaigrette chicken and roasted veggie wrap came. The food did me a world of good! But, of course, going back out into the rain was uncomfortable and I felt chilled after the warmth of the restaurant.

In my wanderings to find food, I’d spotted the Maritime Museum and decided that if I could find it again very quickly, I would head there. Otherwise, I was going to find a food store and head home to change.

Old Kotor was purposely built like a maze for defensive purposes and is full of alleys going off in all sorts of directions. One of the things I looked forward to was getting thoroughly lost and disoriented in it. I figured it would be easy because I never did manage to truly orientate myself in Baščaršija, even with all the walking I did in it. But for some reason, I had no trouble with orientation in Old Kotor today, probably because it’s so small. So I refound the museum without any trouble. It is inside a beautiful old house.

The entry fee of 5Eur surprised me, but made more sense when I learned that that included an audio guide.

Let me digress here for a second to say that Kotor is very expensive compared to what I’ve experienced since coming to the Balkans. I don’t know if this is because of the touristy location or because they use the Euro, but I would feel the pinch if I was here for any length of time and trying to keep up the pace of the last few months. Western Europeans seem to find prices cheap, but they are expensive by what I’ve been used to. 1Eur is 1.53CAD (almost at par with USD), so something like a cab ride that is “only” 5Eur is almost 8CAD. I found bathrooms, ice cream, and groceries to be comparably-ish priced to what I’ve been used to, but coffee, beer, and restaurant meals have been high.

So back to the museum. There are two large floors of exhibits, plus a few things to see on the ground floor. I was thrilled when I was told to, “Please, make many pictures!” But here’s a tip: do not get too close to the exit door with your audio guide or it will start shrieking and the museum personnel will get very cross with you…

I headed up the first flight of stairs to start my tour. The walls were lined with old maps of the area.

The exhibits are themed and of high quality. I was very impressed by this museum. There wasn’t a ton of signage as you get most of the material from the audio guide So I don’t have much to remind me of what things are and all the interesting stories I heard, sorry. Guess you need to come to Kotor and visit its Maritime Museum for yourselves. 🙂 The audio guide, by the way, was really good, narrated by a native English speaker and quite entertaining.

This guy was interesting. He was a slave of the Turks for eight years and eventually rose up against them.

Some of the shields of Kotor.

I had never heard of lemonwood before today, but a bit of Googling tells me it can refer to many different species from all over the world, so I still have no idea what this furniture is made of!

Original flooring. Stunning!

This is an oil lamp, not a candlestick.

I love this painting!

I had never seen black on white “blue willow” before! For those of you who haven’t been following me since forever, I used to collect blue willow china in my pre-RVing days of travel and still have it all.

If I ever get a “forever house,” I’d love to get a desk like this as a statement piece for my office!

Amazing pottery from “the Orient.”

The little boy in this painting? He would become the best known photographer in the region! What an amazing overlap of time periods. He was born the year photography eventually started (1830s, I believe).

I have to say that firearms used to be works of art…

This is Herceg Novi. Another gorgeous painting.

Here, I am on the second floor of the museum.

This captain circumnavigated the globe!

My favourite thing about history museums is seeing period documents showing the mundane details of daily life at the time. This is a travel permit/log book for a sailor.

A navigator made this incredible log book with exquisite drawings detailing the Bay of Kotor and environs.

This painting is almost photographic in nature!

Especially when compared to this one!

This top floor was dedicated to maritime education, as symbolised by this painting of a captain with his students.

Notice all the modern, for the time, tools of the trade.

A French atlas of the ports of the Mediterranean.

Here’s my audio guide. You hold it up to your ear to listen.

I took a second to peek out the front door to see if it was still raining. Yes. Harder. So I went through the museum a second time!

The museum covers maritime history in the area through the Second World War, so you get photographs of captains in addition to paintings.

You can see in my reflection that I took off my top layer in the hope that my fleece would dry out a bit… I have to say I was shocked by how comfy my jeans were, even when wet. I tend not to like to wear jeans because I don’t have the body type for them, but I went to a jean store and had a professional look me over and find the best style for me. So I have “skinny jeans,” which are rather like socially acceptable leggings. I’d avoided jeans all summer, but am rather happy to find them now as I’m getting rather sick of my skirts!

I thought it was neat how the lock on this door is curved.

It was still pouring when I was done, so I decided my day was done. 🙁 I managed to get a picture of the exterior the museum and then ducked into a conveniently located full service grocery store almost right beside it!

I picked up a few things to leave in the fridge by my room and I came out of the store by its exit door to find myself facing another store that sold cheap foldable umbrellas at a price I was willing to pay (5Eur).

I wandered around a bit more, but I was soaked through. My bottom half wasn’t uncomfortable in the least (not even my wet bare feet!) as it was quite warm (in the low 20s), but my shoulders were for some reason. I conceded that the weather had won and that it was time to back to the hostel.

I had no trouble getting a taxi and the ride was just under 4Eur. I had the driver let me off at the bottom of a very short hill to save him the trouble of trying to turn around at the top. I got in one last picture before I hurriedly headed off in direction of a hot shower when…

I got “ambushed” by the owner who offered me coffee!!! I wasn’t that cold, so I happily accepted and went to wait on the covered terrace. She brought me a small pot of coffee (about 1.5 mugs worth), milk, sugar, and this:

The mandarins come from her garden! They were fresh picked this morning! After I enjoyed my coffee and thanked her profusely, she sent me upstairs with the fruit! I just had several pieces of both fruit with my picnic supper. YUM. I think the purple things are a sort of prune. She said they come from the store. I like them too. 🙂

I had a hot shower and changed into dry clothes, which included my second pair of jeans! It was that or my skirt, and, let me tell you, a heavy soaking wet skirt wrapped around your ankles isn’t very comfortable!

Then, get this, the sky freaking CLEARED. The forecast had been adamant it would be 100% rain for 10 days straight and was worsening, not improving. Yet, after about an hour, the rain hadn’t picked up again! So I decided to head back out and try to get a bit of dry time in Kotor.

There were cruise ships in port.

What an unusual cemetery!

It is about 2KM to the end of my road and the limits of Kotor and then about 1KM to Old Town. I barely got away from the hostel when a man pulled over and offered me a ride. Funny how this is something I’m okay with here in the Balkans, but would never consider back home! It’s just part of the culture. The man spoke English, was very nice, and had no “creep” factor. He said he would drive me to the end of the road/to Kotor town limits as his house was right at the corner, and that’s what he did, saving me about 20 minutes of walking.

Can you see the fortress?

How about now?

BLUE SKY!!!

Since it wasn’t raining, I was able to enjoy my amble and actually notice things, like these fish in the river by the entrance to Old Town.

Kotor’s Old Town is a UNESCO heritage site. I was starting to understand why!

The old town is roughly triangular in shape. It must be incredible to live here. Can you imagine trying to give directions to your house?!

What a difference sun made!

So many alleys leading into squares!

This is where I had my breakfast.

This is the way up to the fortress. I wasn’t shod for that and didn’t want to get caught on slick rock when it would start pouring again, so I didn’t head up.

This is their garbage truck! There are a few golf carts for folks to get around, most of them being affiliated with the hotels.

It took a bit of work, but I finally found a restaurant that was happy to serve me a late lunch. One of you lovely readers who knows who she is sent me a gift this week that was expressly for a meal out, so thanks for lunch today! 😀

I was going to go with some sort of seafood, but couldn’t believe the prices. This is grilled veggies (same as what was in my wrap this morning — peppers, eggplant, and zucchini), with chicken breasts, and smothered in gorgonzola sauce. I had picked out a pasta with shrimp even though this is what I really wanted (I mean, gorgonzola!), but when the server came to take my order, he asked if he could make a recommendation. I said sure and this is what he pointed out! It was almost half the cost of the pasta, so it was a no-brainer. I did not eat the potatoes since the garlic bread was so much better (but, no, I did not eat the entire basket of it!). It was a pretty pricy meal by Balkan standards, but still quite reasonable (almost 20CAD with the beer).

Eggplant is not something I normally eat. I remember eating it once 20 years ago when I was in Colorado and possibly more recently (within the last 10 years) in an aunt’s ratatouille, but that’s it. It’s something I’ve been wanting to experiment with and with today’s experience with it being so positive, I’m further motivated to cook with it!

After lunch, I noticed that not only was the rain still holding off, but it was getting quite warm. I had a lunch to work off and inappropriate shoes be damned, I was going to climb to the fortress! I took a few detours along the way to the entrance, though, to make sure I covered as much of Kotor Old town as I could!

I like to send my friend Bast a postcard from every country I go through. I was unable to do so in BiH as I never found postcards for sale nor a post office. It seemed like their postal system is a mess as they have two. So I was hoping I’d have better luck in Montenegro. Well, what do you know, there were tons of postcards and the post office was open on a Sunday afternoon! The clerk stuck the stamp on the card for me and even mailed it herself instead of sending me out to the mailbox.

Kotor is known for its stray cats and there are a lot of collection boxes set up to support their feeding. The cats are necessary — I saw a rat evading a flood this morning!

The cats museum sounded interesting, but it was closed today.

I finally circled back to the entrance up to the fortress. 3Eur entry fee. I started to climb…

And climb some more. I was surprised by how “grippy” my iPanemas were and not as inappropriate for the climb as a rude man made them out to be.

There were often long columns of people coming down. I got out of the way when I could.

You can really see Kotor’s triangular shape here.

There was a woman selling cold drinks out of a cooler at this church. I decided that if she was still there on the way down, I would pay the hefty surcharge for a cold bottle of water to reward her enterprise for getting the cooler up there!

The climb wasn’t too difficult thanks to my Bulgarian conditioning, but I was not dressed for it at all as it was getting super hot! What a contrast to the morning!

I still had a surprising amount left to go when I checked the time and saw that it was past 5:00! That was it for me! I knew that even though it was blazingly sunny out (!), the sun would start to set any minute and it would get dark fast. There was no way I was going to pick my way back down to the bottom in the dark in the shoes I had on. It would have been great to reach the top, but I thought I wouldn’t get to climb at all and I was quitting for a valid reason, so I was okay with turning around.

The descent was slow and much more difficult. The water vendor was still at the church and a bottle was 1.50Eur. She accepted 1.20Eur as that’s all the change I had and would have otherwise had to pay with a tenner. Dang was that water good! 🙂

I knew I was taking a taxi home and with the guy this morning having a hard time giving me change off a 10Eur note, I decided to get an ice cream to break my bill. Ice creams tend to be very small, hence why they’re cheap, so I was shocked by how much the gal piled into my cone, thinking I’d been had. No, my cone was still 1Eur! She was very put upon with me for paying with a “large” note. Even the gal who sold me my umbrella this morning did not have 5Eur change for my umbrella. I am going to have to figure out a way to break my two remaining 50Eur notes! My host says there is a grocery store five minutes in the opposite direction from Kotor, so I’ll head there tomorrow for more food and see if they’ll break one of the notes.

Here’s the map of Old Town found outside of it by the main entrance. It’s much smaller than I expected. I’ve covered the whole of it.

I wandered a bit out front and along the water after coming out of Old Town.

The parking fee structure at a shopping centre was unusual. The bottom language is Russian, but, dang, it is super close to Bulgarian. I was bemused on the climb to the fortress that I noticed the Russian/Bulgarian word for “caution” (внимание) before the English word! On the way, I chatted with some Spanish, American, and French folks and frequently said “Excuse me” in Serbian, so I can say that I used six languages on my climb! 😀

I found a taxi stand by the mall and got one there knowing this was the point of no return for getting a taxi. My written instructions for getting to the hotel got destroyed after my bag got soaked (and transferred dye to everything!), but the driver knew where the hostel is and spoke a bit of English anyway.

Here is my host’s mandarin tree… and her lemon tree!!!

The carpark is over her apartment!

Kotor Old Town was as beautiful as I’d hoped it would be. All I wanted was one clear afternoon to explore it and I got it. The odds are ever in my favour!

There’s lots to see and do in the region, but I never meant for this to be a tourist stop because of the higher cost of living. The point was to get to the shores of the Adriatic and just breathe a bit. So what I’m hoping for is a work project to cover the next two days, but I know I can’t count on anything tomorrow as it won’t be Monday in North America. So I’m probably plop myself down on the terrace to catch up on bookkeeping and other admin tasks and also start working on a few blog posts I’ve been meaning to do. I also need to figure out how I’m going to get to Skopje!

I’ll be back to the shores of the Mediterranean before I know it!

A Life By Design

"Sometimes in life, we reach to a right place by departing from a wrong port with a wrong ship!" ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Religious Sites/Cemeteries

Getting Orientated in Barcelona

Skopje Walking Tour

Skopje Fails To Make Much of an Impression

A Stopover in Lovely Prizren, Kosovo

A Salvaged Day in Kotor