Porto Montenegro. This is where we first met Sabática back in April. I had to look the country of Montenegro up on a map (sorry, Montenegro!) as I didn’t know where it was. (Link provided in case anyone else needs to look it up!) Suffice to say it’s a Balkan country south of Croatia, north of Albania, and due east of Rome across the Adriatic Sea. Montenegro means “black mountain,” and the beautiful mountains make up at least 70% of the landmass (we were told).
The population of the country of Montenegro is only around 628,000. The population of the town of Tivat (where the marina is) is just about 14,000 people. Porto Montenegro is a full-service, luxury marina on the waterfront in Tivat that is geared towards superyachts (and the likes of us). It is an oasis in an otherwise typical town. We are way out of our league, but are enjoying the fabulous amenities while we are here for a few weeks! (My photos don’t even begin to do the place justice, so for anyone curious, you can check out their website here.) Fashionistas abound, and we are frequently amused by the women dramatically posing to take their next Instagram photo.
Porto Montenegro / Tivat is also a very lively place. Families of all ages and sizes come out in the evenings after the sun has gone down and the day has cooled. It’s not unusual to see kids running around, riding scooters, kicking balls, and eating gelato until near midnight. Reminds us a lot of Spain. In the marina, there can also be parties. We had a nearby neighbor literally having their own private disco (lights and all) last night with loud, sometimes good music. 😉
So far we have found Montenegro to be a place of amazing natural beauty and generally friendly people. While the locals are definitely like Eastern Europeans and don’t go out of their way to acknowledge you or be outwardly friendly, if you engage them, they are generally kind and helpful. Language is definitely a barrier. The national language is Montenegrin, a Serbo-Croatian language for which Google Translate nor iTranslate know anything about, unfortunately. Luckily, in the marina area for sure, most staff members speak English and even in stores further afield we’ve usually managed to find someone who could speak English. We even had a fabulous taxi driver who helped us to a home goods shop, came in, and served as translator as we were trying to find things!
Our taxi driver also happened to be a former tour guide, so we learned some interesting things about the country from him. Apparently, back in 2009, Russians invested 4 Billion into the country, so it’s grown and developed hugely since then. Most summer tourists would tend to be from Russia, and thus we can only imagine the stories behind all the superyachts we see here. Laundering (not the clothing type) was definitely a thing here. With the current state of affairs, though, this is a quiet tourist season for them. There’s a lot of history here and we aim to learn more.
We also met our former AirBnB host, Laura, for coffee and learned that lots of tourists also come from Canada. (She’s Canadian and a realtor here.) She has been a huge resource and help for us trying to identify local stores and dealing with locals. We’d have been lost without her!
Interestingly, or frustratingly, nearly everything (foods, goods, etc) need to be imported. That means selection is very limited and sourcing things can take time as they come from neighboring countries. One example – Since I’ve started swimming more, I wanted to get a pair of goggles. We identified pretty much one shop that would carry them. They only had one pair that would fit me. Neon green it is!
Sailing Sabática 