7/11. We leave Croatia about 20:00. The captain nicely detours under the city walls for one last look.

The next day, sailing south past Albania a brief announcement comes over the PA system. Crew notice, crew notice, category 0 drill, category 0 drill, man overboard, man overboard. And the ship takes a tight port turn. I can see something bright orange in the arc of the now-curving wake. The ship rolls. After a turn of about 4 points (45° for you landlubbers) we turn back to starboard. This pattern positions us to retrace our path exactly. We see one of the ship’s boats being deployed outside the computer lab’s window. The boat crew gets quickly to the dummy in the water and drags it aboard. We retrieve the boat and make a leisurely half-circle to get back on course.

Hey look, there the Peloponnese Periphery! And a lovely sunset. Tomorrow Athens and the temples at the Acropolis.

Saturday July 10^th. Day-trip to Montenegro. I felt kinship to Montenegro. Montenegro is black mountain, Vermont is green mountain. Sure, their mountains drop into salt water and ours into Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River, but pretty mountains are pretty mountains, and our populations are just about the same. They have less land, 5,000 sq mi compared to our 9,000.  Montenegro has a history of war, due mostly to the fact that they lie on the strategic road from East to West through Constantinople.

We were fortunate to pick starboard-side seats. We watched the Adriatic all the way down to the Croatian check-point on the border. It took about an hour to clear Croatia, less time at the Montenegrin check-point. Then we drove to and around the beautiful Kotor (cutter) Bay. We stopped and visited Kotor city briefly. Kotor has amazing defensive walls that climb steeply the mountain behind the city. After Kotor we headed to the resort of Budva for a bad lunch and a quick peep at a long sandy beach. OK! Back on the bus!

We cut across Kotor Bay on the way back with a short ferry ride. The tour guide helped me get postcards mailed before we exited the country (yea!). If I had failed it would have made my standing in line at the Montenegrin post office in Kotor a waste of time.

We got back to the ship, changed and freshened up, and grabbed a taxi to get to a restaurant that folks had recommended. We finally tried the fish-platter-for-2 we had been seeing on the menus. We finished the meal with the local fruit brandy and headed back to the ship. We caught a glimpse of the fireworks that were part of the opening ceremony of the summer festival in Dubrovnik.

When Kathy and I left ACMT we planned to return to the ship to change before a walk around the old city but we found the buses were crazy crowded and traffic was tied up.  There was a meeting in town of the foreign ministers of the Adriatic states in town adding to the usual summer tourist population, and everyone was trying to board the bus that we needed. So, we decided to skip the clothes change and stay in town. We headed for the old city to walk the walls. They are amazing. Beautiful views at every turn. Almost 2 kilometers long. It took us about 90 minutes to complete the circuit.

After the sight seeing we headed into the old city to eat at a restaurant that had been recommended, the Taj Mahal. We sampled dishes recommended by Croatian students we had met. Beef sausages in this really tasty fried bread, and a hot sandwich made with turkey and cheese.  We tried the beer. I think we’ll stick to wine for the rest of our stay.

After dinner we caught a bus in Pile back to the port. Pile (pea lay) is the square right in front of the main gate to the old city. A taxi driver said it means “small chicken”. He has no idea why the square carries that name.

Oh! And while in the old city we found a Posta open late and got postcard stamps. So, another batch of postcards, this time stamped Croatia!