Bus through the Montenegro hills to the hidden gem Kotor

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(the article below accompanies this video)

After my terribly high BG late last night, I woke up at 175 this morning, and it stayed right about there all day, according to the three BG checks I did all day.

Masayo and I ate muesli and yogurt with a banana for breakfast and then checked out of our lovely apartment in Podgorica, Montenegro. It was nice, and I hated to leave it, but that’s how it goes. Gotta keep movin’. I packed the unopened bottle of wine in my bag between some shirts, hoping it wouldn’t break.

Walking through the streets of Kotor, we stopped off at a seventh Transformer statue that we’d missed yesterday (we had miscounted), and then came across a Jewish park that we strolled through. Nice fountains and statues and paths around the trees.

The ride between Podgorica and Kotor

Our ride to the town of Kotor on the coast was a mini-bus, comfy and with only a few others. People just don’t seem to travel around much in this area in the middle of winter.

The route from Podgorica to Kotor goes over some mountains, and although the road surface was dry and sunny the whole way, there was some pretty deep snow on the sides of the road at the highest elevations. We haven’t seen snow that much recently, and the views were surprisingly unbelievable. What lucky travelers!

In Kotor

We arrived in Kotor a little early, and waited for our ride: Nada, the lady who runs Apartments Kordić, had promised to pick us up. And she did. Nada is a super friendly woman who works hard to make her guests feel comfortable. She speaks no English, but communicates with patience and smiles and a kind of manic enthusiasm.

She checked us in to our room, and I checked my BG: it was 193. Not great, but less than 200 at least. Our room has a little porch area with a table and chairs and a great view of the Bay of Kotor. I hope to sit out here and watch the water, but it may be a bit cold during our stay.

We walked down to Old Town — along a winding road with no sidewalk at all; it was frightening — to check out the town a little. Not much though; tomorrow we are planning on hiking around the old fortress walls above Kotor and would like to save our energy.

Old Town was nice, though we didn’t walk around it at all. We just basically peeked into the main gate and saw a square and some shops. We walked over to the water’s edge then. The Bay of Kotor is a long, thin inlet from the Adriatic Sea, and the town of Kotor where we are staying is just one of the towns along it.

The wind was rough today, and the waves were high. Mist sprayed over the road on bridges, and waves crashed forcefully against the promenades, where it was too cold for anyone to walk. (Well, anyone besides Masayo and I, that is.)

Heading back to the room we found a route that led up some stairs and around some buildings, so we didn’t have to walk on the road.

Fresh seafood and wine

Nada had recommended a grilled fish place right in front of the apartment, and we went there for dinner. It turned out to be a little take-out place with no seating, run by a nice couple who obviously had been doing this for some time. They had various types of seafood on ice in the cooler, and we got some squids stuffed with shrimp.

They said come back in thirty minutes and the grilled goods would be ready. We went back to the room and opened the bottle of red wine that Nada had left for us — the white wine I’d been carrying around went into the refrigerator. (Is that right? I don’t know.)

We went down to get the shrimp-squids at the appointed time, and they also threw in a few spoonfuls of rice. Back in the room, we had the fresh grilled seafood, with the wine, and some homemade bread that Nada had brought us. It was excellent, and the seafood was cheap as well. Everything else was free, thanks to Nada. I even started to see the attraction of wine — it sure went well with everything. We got happily full.

How to bolus for wine: good luck

Masayo had a small glass of wine and that was enough for her; over the evening, I drank most of the rest of the bottle. I thought wine must have about as much carbs as juice, so I shot up Humalog for it based on that. It seemed like a highwire act, trying to balance wine and insulin, but I’d keep an eye on it.

It worked pretty well, considering I don’t know anything about wine: at 9:30 I was 170. Not too shabby for such a new, unusual dinner.

The internet in our room was not working well, and Nada came to the room and tried to help. Each of her rooms has a separate router and network name and password, and we tried the others. None worked very well, until she got her son on the phone. He spoke to me, in English, and Nada gave us a new router and it seemed to work. But only on my computer, not on Masayo’s, nor her phone.

But we didn’t care: the dinner was so good, and the location of our room was so nice — we could see the blue water and the opposite bank of the fjord-like landscape from the porch of our room — that we just relaxed and took it easy. Tomorrow: climbing!

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