135. Balkan Tour (2)

Monday, 5-21

2. Bay of Kotor

All-day bus tour around the whole bay.  Beauty and religion, not much politics, same good food.  Breath-taking views.   Great medieval towns, not much different from those in middle Europe.  Pretty much the same sequence of conquerors and semi-conquerors, the worst makers of trouble.  Churches not so fancy, but sweet.

Did chew over something we learned yesterday that, as I remember it, is sort of a commentary on politics.  Branca, our local specialist, told us that after the Herceg Novi high-school graduating ceremony the entire class, robed, marches from the school to a closed iron gate, guarded by two soldiers in medieval costume.  After their leader answers some ritual questions the soldiers open the gate and the students march, past cheering family and friends, to a hotel for a big banquet together.  This has gone on year after year, through all wars, feuds, changes of government, and splits in religion.  So, despite all the internal divisions there's this unity.

Another thing to add from yesterday.  Herceg Novi is as bad as Switzerland for slant.  All mountainside.  Buses restricted.  So at the let-off for Old Town we face a bunch of stairs.  Julia says more than two hundred and looks serious.  We ask Branca how many.  She says she won't tell us till afterward.  Well we climb and climb and some can't make it all the way.  For those that did it was worth it, but we couldn't wait to hear from Branca.  How many? "More than a thousand."  No wonder some of us were stiff in the legs this morning.

We had acquired some tender feelings for Branca, our guide through all the mazes of Montenegrin troubles (occupied by Austria in WWI, by Italy in WWII, and split by near civil-war in between and after) and crimes (joining with the Serbs in their vicious attack on Dubrovnik, having their main general, Pavle Strugar, convicted as a war criminal), and our guide through all the beauty, too.  This was her last day and as we were leaving her I asked the question I am most determined to ask here: What do you consider yourself, a Montenegrin (or Serb, or Croatian, or Bosnian, etc.) or Orthodox (or Muslim), or Slav, or speaker of Serbo-Croatian, or whatever.  Which comes first?  Without hesitation she said, "Montenegrin."  When we parted Mary Anne gave her a big hug, the first time I had ever seen her hug a guide.  When I afterward asked her why she didn't make much of it but thought it might have had something to do with the fact that she "had a sad look on her face."

Note: If you're interested you can Google "Bay of Kotor" and get an idea of some of the beauty we saw.