134. Balkan Tour (1)

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For the next few days I'll be sharing my experiences on a 16-day Road Scholar tour of Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Slovenia by posting this edited and condensed version of reports to my family. 

Sunday, 5-20-12

1. Balkans Start

We (and you) maybe will be able to guess our whole Balkans experience from the way our chief guide explained the fact that she was Hungarian: "It was thought best to have an outsider tell you about this region."  Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) couldn't trust any Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, or Slovenian to talk about the others.  After one day we can well see why.  Montenegro has had an easier time than nearly all the others and still we have gotten from locals seventeen reasons why Montenegrins shouldn't trust anybody.

The bonus has been the beauty of the place.  Herceg Novi lies near the entrance of a big blue bay in front of steep brown mountains backed by giant grey mountains.  As we cruised out this morning bright white clouds were moving against them from the Adriatic.  It dazzled us.  Then the voice of the guide explaining that just past the ridge on the right was Croatia, which wanted the whole ridge.  When we got to the bay entrance we learned that the fortifications at the point where the ridge on the right ended were Croatian while the ones on the point to the left were Montenegrin.  The towns on the bay were Montenegrin.  "It's like buying an apartment where your neighbor owns half the front door." (The boundary is still being negotiated by European courts.)

My space is limited but some things in our guide's presentation were too fascinating to leave out.  Like the slide of the lovely church put up by Serbia to help reconcile its Orthodox and Roman Catholic citizens. It had both a Serbian Orthodox altar and a R. C. altar but by the time they got it up the seceding Montenegrins had formed a Montenegrin Orthodox church and objected to the Serbian connection, maybe in liturgical practice.  Whatever the issue the two sets of priests were now, the lecturer said, "fighting in the streets."