Tag: https://www.visit-montenegro.com/

Countries, Deals, Europe

The Mother of Dragons’ shame in Dubrovnik

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I can’t take her anywhere, or how our Game of Thrones tour (£42) turned into the Mother of Dragons’ shame in Dubrovnik.

King’s Landing as all Thronies know is where Cersei walked naked through the streets as the people shouted ‘Shame’ at her.

For sleeping with Jamie her brother.

I have introduced my own Mother of Dragons thus to our guide Edi, a thirty-something Croatian guide.

Guide to GoT

Hellfire: The Mother of all Dragons

The GetYourGuide Game of Thrones tour (€40) boasts some 14 locations and Edi takes us around them all.

From the moment you enter through the Pile Gate which Edi helpfully translates as Gate Gate…

You are transported through time and CGI to Martin’s world.

Ready, Edi, Go

Walls have ears: Inside the GoT set

Edi helpfully reveals that the-then Dubrovnik mayor granted HBO free rites to his city.

And that the locals initially thought him mad to give it away.

Only it has paid back in spades through tourism.

The townspeople cashed in then too when the producers offered them €100 each to remove their boats from the harbour while they shot scenes.

The Lovrijenac Fort (€15) itself is steeped in history before you even get to GoT once boasting Europe’s largest cannon.

It was here too that Cersei and Littlefinger fell out.

 Stairway to Hell

Walk of Shame: Right here in Dubrovnik

The Spanish, or Jesuit Stairs, are the best-known locale, even recognised by those who have never seen the show.

Edi tells us that, yes, it is based on Rome’s Spanish Steps.

So they set a fine of €150 for those who took off their top or bras.

And so as Edi took the stragglers off to a makeshift Iron Throne.

Little treats: GoT delights

The authentic ones are in the North of Ireland and Lokrum, in eye’s view of Dubrovnik.

And it is to Lokrum that we head next on our pearl anniversary odyssey of Croatia and Montenegro.

With loveholidays and EasyJet, staying at the Grand Park Hotel in the peninsula.

 

 

 

Countries, Deals, Europe

Welcome to Moggienegro

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A little mouse told me, well, Rommy our Croatian tour guide, but welcome to Moggienegro anyway.

Rommy was probably stretching it to say the Montenegrins were the first to use cats to fight the Black Death.

But they have certainly made cats their USP.

And you can’t move in Kotor for cats around your feet.

Which is all fine by us.

We have come to Kotor in Montenegro from our loveholidays billet in Dubrovnik, Croatia, for the day (€97 for two/GetYourGuide).

Montenegro’s mini-Dubrovnik

Folksy: Old couple in Kotar

Unbeknownst to us Kotor is a smaller, less busy, cheaper, and equally beguiling walled city to Dubrovnik.

It too has churches, Serbian Orthodox, and reliquaries, and a devotion to the Evangelists.

With its cathedral proudly displaying monster-sized framed pictures of the bibliographers.

Church times: Pious people

But while the Montenegrins are clearly a pious people.

As evidenced by the church island made by fishermen and dedicated to Our Lady at our first stop in Perast.

Their real devotion is to their cats which have the run of their Medieval jewel Kotor.

Kotor’s cat culture

My catwoman: Sadie in Kotar

Kotor, in the apron of the black mounts, or Monte Negro, which give this petite country its name, has much to recommend it.

A palm tree-lined promenade, by the lake shore from which our boat comes ashore, leads to a grand arch.

It proudly proclaims its Italian links, Partisans’ victory over the Nazis and Yugoslavian champion Marshall Tito.

All of which you can delve further into at the Maritime Museum which chronicles the two world wars and Balkans conflicts (€6pp).

The Miaowritime Museum

Cat people: With Lola

But our ears’ pricked up at the prospect of visiting the Miaowritime Museum, or Cats Museum (€1pp).

Where Lola is there to greet us, splayed over the counter, and generous with her cuddles and purrs.

Laminated sheets give visitors a guide in your own language to the exhibits.

All of which give a fun, feline, look into the world of cats.

Ja beauty: War cat

How battalions adopted them as mascots, Hollywood stars petted them, children included them in their games and animators infantilised them.

Every shop sells cat-themed merch, from clothes, through tote bags, jewellery and porcelain and more besides.

While the pussies luxuriate on a church door step in the mid-20s mid-afternoon sun.

Lazing on a tabby afternoon

Catwalk: In fashion

You would be forgiven for thinking they might be sleeping off the titbits from tables of the speciality oysters and muscle local fare.

We are though discouraged from feeding them our dishes.

With the Cats Museum advising that we should donate cat food at any one of a number of stop-offs around town.

The Kotor cats, again if Rommy is to believed and she is mischievous with us, are symptomatic of the Montenegrins.

The laziest of the six countries that made up the old Yugoslavia.

And that’s a bad thing?

Farewell feline friends

Classic: The walled town

I take my cue from my feline friends and have a doze on the coach back to Croatia.

Not even the sight of the cats coming and going freely over the border while we are stuck for an hour at customs can make us take against them.

We eventually get through and as I look back over my shoulder I swear the sign says…

Welcome to Moggienegro.