Ham and Cheese stuffed with Ham and Cheese in Montenegro

I'm writing part of this post from one of the most magical places I've been to. We're in Lovcen National Park in Montenegro. I can't describe why it's so magical - yes, it's stunningly beautiful but so are many other places that don't weave their magic spells on me like this place does. Maybe it's the peace - the birds are singing and crickets are chirping. Maybe it's the acres of forest and lush green grass. Maybe it's the rugged mountains providing a stunning backdrop to the scene. All I know is that when I sit on our tiny balcony staring over this place, everything feels right.

But that's enough of the mushy stuff - I'd better start at the beginning! We arrived in Montenegro a couple of weeks ago. Montenegro is only a tiny country. If you haven't heard of it don't despair. It used to be a part of Yugoslavia but during the 90's Yugoslavia started breaking up into what we now call Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro. Montenegro didn't achieve independent country status until 2006.

Our first destination was Kotor, a stunning old Venetian town set within city walls that run up a steep hill. Kotor is a very popular tourist destination and the old town is small. We couldn't get accommodation inside the city walls so we settled for an apartment not far away. It turned out to be perfect - a brand new place with fantastic views of the bay and just a short walk from everything. The owner, Zoja, was lovely.

Dawn, we kept thinking of you because we know you loved this town!

We had fun exploring Kotor. It has narrow, cobblestoned alleys and gorgeous old buildings.

We poked our noses inside a couple of stunning churches. The floor of this one was scattered with branches of broom and rosemary. We're not sure why. Many people there were there for religious reasons, not just looking.

I thought this photo was very funny! I wonder if the cat was a souvenir too!

We clambered up to the top of the old fort and walls that surround the town. It was a steep climb but the views were stunning.

The old town sits at one end of a striking deep-water bay lined with old stone houses with terracotta roofs. One problem though was that the deep bay allows humongous cruise ships to pull right into the port. The tallest building in the town is about 6 stories, but most are only one or two stories. Some of the cruise ships tower 15 stories high. The large ones seem so out of place. With their huge bulk, regular loudspeaker announcements and noisy anchor dropping they seriously detract from the gorgeous smaller scale beauty of the place. I've got nothing against cruise ships but I think the large ones shouldn't be allowed into such small places. The ship below was just metres from the walls of the old town.

Sometimes a place can be wonderful but it's the people we meet that make it special. The lady that owns our apartment recommended that we get takeaways from the guy across the road. As we haven't had an apartment anywhere else in our travels, plus we had a lovely balcony to eat dinner on, we took her up on her recommendation. The guy was such a character, We picked out some kebabs and while he cooked them up for us, we were offered some home-made rakja (the local fire-water). By the time our meal was cooked John had downed a few rakjas, and we had the whole recipe written up for us (it's made with green walnuts and fermented in the sun for 40 days!), and we had a new friend to boot. The food was so delicious and the company so friendly that we went back again the next night armed with a few beers. Who needs to go to the pub for drinks and companionship when you can go to the takeaway joint? It's a pity that this photo doesn't show his fantastic, toothless smile!

The other character we met was in a much stranger location - half way up a steep hill near the old city walls on a walking track. There was no road access at all. The only people that visited here were walkers or people that were exploring the higher reaches of the city walls. The guy was massive (a lot of Montenegrins are very tall) and didn't speak a word of English. He had a few tables and chairs set up under a roof overlooking the spectacular bay of Kotor. There was no menu, just a sign outside that said "Rakja, scotch, cheese, ham". And that's all he sold. The cheese and ham are local specialities. He brought out a wheel of cheese and we just pointed to how much we wanted and he cut it. Nothing was weighed - it was all just done by guess. Funnily enough, it always seems to add up to an even number of euros. Somehow John ended up having to taste his rakja and we got shown through his very basic house. We got chatting to a German/English family and the owner broke a branch off a cherry tree so we could all eat the cherries! Once again we were best mates in a short period of time.

Our aim was to do some more walking along a 6-day trek we had read about. It was a bit tricky because there were no maps available - we just pinched the idea from a website! Zoja, our landlord, was able to help us with directions for the first day. This walk started at a different town and we walked up and over a huge hill back to Kotor. It was a hard but gorgeous walk in the humid air as a thunderstorm rumbled and grumbled overhead but nothing much happened.

We then lightened our load and left a bag with Zoja while we did the rest of the walk. Our next day of climbing took us up past the cheese and prosciutto guy again and he was rapt to see us. After another round of cheese we kept climbing, with sensational views over the bay of Kotor beside us.

Without maps, navigation was a bit tricky but the tracks were well marked. We may not have taken the most direct route but we got to our destination ok. The town was called Njegusi and this is where the famous ham (also called prosciutto) and cheese comes from. We soon realised that this ham and cheese was so famous that it featured on every menu in the country. You could have Njegusi ham entrees, Njegusi cheese entrees, pork stuffed with Njegusi ham and cheese, beef stuffed with Njegusi ham and cheese.... you get the idea. We were quickly over it! (Apologies to our vegetarian/vegan kids!)

There was only one accommodation option in Njegusi. We found cute looking A-frame bungalows, but they weren't very nice. The bathroom leaked stinky odours into the hut (we've come across this a few times) and the mattress must have been 30 years old. Every spring could clearly be seen - and felt. We were so tired that we still slept but were keen to leave the next day. The food was wonderful though and here's what the view was like from our window. Our next day's destination is that peak just visible in the distance over the ridge towards the left of the photo.

Without maps, we relied on local advice and found our way relatively easily the next day. We had great views as we climbed all the way up to a famous (in Montenegro at least) monument to a much -respected king on the top of a mountain. The king was apparently a visionary as well as a poet and philosopher. The monument was amazing and the views were unbelievable. After walking hard to reach the mountain top we were greeted with hundreds of steps though.....

Our destination that night was a lovely hotel in the middle of the National Park, which is where I fell in love with the place I mentioned earlier. Here's the view from our hotel balcony.

We spent a day doing a truly stunning loop through the National Park. It really is a sensational place. We walked through old beech forest where the leaves from centuries of trees provided soft cushioning under our feet. We saw distant sea views, rolling hills, a gorgeous little church in a valley, stunning forests and ruins of bunkers and lookouts from not-so-long-ago days of war. Oh - and four snakes in two days! One had been run over but the other three were very much alive. Many snakes in Europe aren't poisonous but one we saw was a viper - definitely poisonous. It was only about 60 cm long though.

 We think this one is actually a legless lizard but it's the only one I managed to get a photo of!

We sadly left our little piece of paradise and headed out of the national park to our next destination, the old capital of Montenegro. Throughout the walk we had seen a lot of herbs, mainly sage, but also rosemary, thyme and marjoram. As we headed out, sage in full flower painted the sides of the track purple.

We didn't see a lot of the old capital city of Cetinje as we were busy trying to organise the next day's walk and there was very little info available. It took us ages to work out where we needed to go which was a shame because the town looked lovely. We saw it at night though - it's full of gorgeous old buildings from when it was the old capital but it's only small so it was very quiet. It was lovely.

The walk the next day turned out to be not as interesting as the previous days but we found this gorgeous tea shop en route. It was closed but it was a lovely place for us to stop for a quick break.

 When we were about 3/4 of the way through the walk a man offered us a lift. We were just walking on the bitumen, so we accepted. He turned out to be a park ranger and loved that we had enjoyed his park. He dropped us right where we wanted to go. Our final plan always was to catch a boat from here up the river to Skadar Lake and finish our walk there, which is exactly what we did. The final destination wasn't really that amazing but we just wanted to do the boat trip! 

Skadar Lake is huge and is lined with water lilies.

Two very happy Vegemites. We did it!!!!

We're off for a well-earned rest! See ya!