Tuesday, August 16- Overland to Dubrovnik

 

I hadn’t deliberately planned a tour with no air transportation between the beginning and ending cities but given the headlines I was happy to avoid the airports.  We started out after breakfast and our first stop was in St. Stephen’s, Montenegro.  We had lunch overlooking a resort that runs $1,500/night where guests have included Madonna and Grace Kelly. 

The resort is out on the island.

Closer view.

From there we had a long, slow drive to the Croatian border through seaside towns.  As with any other seaside town in the summer, traffic crawled.    We did the international version of checking license plates.  Our guide told us what the country abbreviations meant- Montenegro, of course, but also Estonia, Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia and Latvia. 

At the Albanian/Croatian border we said goodbye at the border to our Albanian guide, Khedli, and met Elsa, our guide for the rest of the trip.  That evening another seven people would join the four of us who had taken the pre-trip to Albania.