Day 17 - June 1

Distance: 9.8 miles (15.8 km)

It seems that for every really great day (like yesterday) we have, we have to have an exhausting and somewhat stressful day of travel... i.e. of waiting, of sitting at bus stations, of sitting on buses, of lugging our backpacks across cities, of collapsing on our hostel beds  when we finally get checked in at our destination.  This was one of those days.

We checked out of the wonderful Dubrovnik family's apartment pretty late (They were kind enough to let us stay until we had to leave for our bus) and headed to the bus station for the 3pm bus to Kotor, Montenegro.  Only thing was, there was no 3pm bus.  The schedule online said there was.  The schedule at the bus station said there was.  But the person at the ticket window said there was not.  The next one was at 7pm.  So what to do for 4 hours?  Go to the Old Town, lug our backpacks around some more there, and sit by the harbor.  I realized that if I wanted to run today, though, I had to do it before leaving for Kotor, since we'd get there really late.  Therefore, I found a bathroom, changed into my running clothes, and started running from the Old Town, this time heading south, along the least busy road I could find clinging to the coastline.  

Rector's Palace

I mentioned before that Dubrovnik has a lot of stray cats.  I think I discovered part of the reason why. As I ran further up the coastal road, I turned onto another seemingly abandoned coastal road (I think it's the road that the Serbian Army blew up during the Siege of Dubrovnik) the cats became thicker until there were mini-herds (prides?) of cats.  I soon came upon a man petting and playing with about 10 of them, which I thought was pretty odd.  Eventually, I hit a dead end with about 60 cats gathered there. I stopped for a quick rest before I turned around to head back, and just then a lady came out of the bushes with a big plastic bag of food.  The cats were swarming around her as she placed it into various bowls.  Not wanting to seem like I was staring, I just turned around and continued with my run.  Running back down the road, I noticed the stone railings were lined with cat food and water bowls, and looking carefully into the bushes, I saw dozens of little cat houses.  I think that this man and woman could be single-handedly responsible for the stray cat epidemic plaguing the Balkan Peninsula.  I will forever  remember that road as the "Road of the Cat Whisperers."

View from the "Road of the Cat Whisperers"

Cat houses in the bushes

View from the fortress outside the Old Town

Old Town Harbor

After finishing up my run, we caught a bus back to the main bus station... or so we thought.  It ended up going on a route that took us about a mile and a half from the bus station, so we walked.  Luckily we allowed ourselves plenty of time to catch our bus to Kotor.  We even had time to stop at a pizza place, where I somehow downed a full medium-sized pizza (by Pizza Hut standards) by myself.

Ship by the port

I can't believe I ate the whole thing!

The ride into Montenegro was in the dark, but even then, I could get an idea of the beauty of this tiny country. The further we drove, the taller and steeper the mountains looming over us grew.  We arrived in Kotor pretty late, like 11pm, and found our way to our hostel which was in the exact center of Kotor's tiny, walled Old Town.  The receptionist/operator/maybe owner of the hostel was a really cool dude, probably one of the most helpful people I've met.  He showed us all the facilities of the hostel, which was really nice - the places we stay keep getting better and better and cheaper and cheaper!  So anyway, it was late, we were tired, so we went to bed.