Day 6, May 17, 2014
Our hosts in Herceg Novi arranged for a driver to pick us up
outside the Pile Gate. We humped our bags through throngs of tourists pouring
into Old Town
from three cruise ships in port. We were
happy to be leaving the masses of international humanity for the quiet seaside
in Montenegro. It took us a little over 30 minutes and two
border crossings through a beautiful countryside uniquely accented with
extremely tall cypress trees that grow wild in the hills and valleys. It made
us smile to see hazard road signs warning of wild pigs.
Our serviced apartment is stunningly beautiful and
modern. We were greeted and everything
was explained by our super friendly host, Zeljka at the Mianiko Apartments.
First order of business was to get some Euros to pay for our
place and buy groceries, which were available one minute away. Stolichnaya vodka cost a mere 9 Euros and
local beer, Jelen (500 ml) beer just .69 Euros.
I like it here already. Oh and we
also bought some food, local salami, cheese, wine vinegar, olive oil, olives,
bread, lettuce and eggs. The weather is supposed to get better although inland
they have had the worst flooding in 125 years.
After a brief downpour, we headed out on the 7km seaside promenade
towards the Old Town
where my father was born.
We stopped for lunch at a taverna and I couldn’t
resist ordering squid stuffed with prawns, a local specialty. I am trying to beat this addiction to squid but
am failing miserably.
Prices here are
all in Euros and cheaper than Dubrovnik.
In the taverna, a half litre of beer was 2 Euros ($3). You gotta love it!
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| Where my dad first lived |
We had a quick visit of Old Town and saw where my great grandfather
and then his son, my grandfather, had their dry goods store just outside of the
clock tower gate and where my father first lived before his father’s untimely
death.
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| The former dry goods store |
We walked quietly back home on the upper road.
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| Rudnik Hotel damaged during the 1979 earthquake across the street from the Mandic house |
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| Mandic house |
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| Mandic house |
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| Mandic house |
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| The road to Topla |
One of the objectives of
this trip was to put flowers on my grandfather’s grave on behalf of my Dad. All
we knew was that he was buried in Topla. We saw a church on the street we were
on with a graveyard. I stopped to ask if this was Topla and the lady said
yes. We entered the cemetery, but all of
the grave stones were written in a Cyrillic script. We asked two women sitting outside the church
if they could help us but they could not speak English. Still they went from
grave to grave and at one point called out the name Sofija Marovic, 1901-1997.
Of course, the letters on the grave did not resemble her English name since it
was written in Cyrillic script which
is based on the Early Cyrillic. It
was a cosmic event since we were looking for Dusan Mandic who died when my
father was 16 in 1938 or 1939. These
wonderfully helpful women had inadvertently found my grandmother’s grave who we
discovered had chosen to be buried with her family using her maiden name.
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| My gandmother's grave |
The older of the two women made some phone
calls which led to a grave with engravings no longer legible. Tomorrow we will be back when a man will be at
the church that has a written record of all who are buried in the
cemetery.
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| Views from our apartment when we got home |
Jill made us a salad
for dinner which went well with our $5 bottle of local unoaked Chardonnay.
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