Week 26: our journey home (friends, family and ferries)

Very early Wednesday morning, and still feeling under the weather, we hopped on a bus from Sutomore, Montenegro to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Crossing the border into Croatia took aaaaaaages and our 5 hour journey became 7 hours. And the toilet on the bus didn't work. Needless to say I wasn't particularly chipper when we eventually arrived!

After checking into our hostel and having a rest we walked into Dubrovnik old town. Sadly, being ill we didn't really want to drink or have too much to eat so we just wandered aimlessly through the quaint little streets of the old town. We have been to Dubrovnik before, a few years ago, so we didn't feel too disappointed that we didn't have the energy to make the most of our one day here.

The following morning we flew from Dubrovnik to Dusseldorf and then got the train to Düren, Germany. Some friends of mine were having a house warming this weekend, so we called in for a pitstop on the way home. The first time we were in Germany it felt very clean and efficient. It felt even more so this time, in comparison to the more relaxed attitude to litter etc in Eastern Europe! We spent two nights with Marcelo and Larissa (and their kids George and Eloisa). We went out to the beautiful city of Bonn with Larissa and the kids. The "bo" in Haribo stands for Bonn, and it is where the sweets originated. There was a huge Haribo store that was totally mind blowing. They had Haribo sweet versions of absolutely everything. We spent the rest of our time just catching up with our friends and relaxing (we were starting to feel a bit more human by this point, thankfully). Marcelo and Larissa threw a great party (and Craig got to catch up on all the Game of Thrones he'd missed while we've been away!), it was a really fun weekend.



On Sunday we waved goodbye to our friends to and said hello to family! We got the train up to Amsterdam (the last stop on our trip) where we met Craig's parents. We had rented a beautiful apartment near Amsterdam city centre for 3 nights. Sunday was Neil's Birthday, so in the evening we walked along the canals to Proeflokaal Arendsnest, a cosy bar with 100's of Dutch beers, which was a great start to our family holiday.

It really felt like we packed a lot into our time in Amsterdam. We went to the Rijksmuseum, the Albert Cuypmarkt (a huge outdoor market), De 9 Straatjes (the 9 streets, a pretty area of Amsterdam with lots of independent and stylish stores), and of course we took a boat trip through the canals. Our boat trip was with Boat Amsterdam and it was €15 for an hour boat trip with all drinks included! We got cosy at the front of the boat under some blankets and enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine. As we arrived back at the Oude Kerk at 3pm we saw a tiny multicoloured boat with a man playing musical instruments in time with the 3pm church bells! It was great!





After all our exploring we spent Tuesday afternoon in a quirky bar with furniture on the ceiling, sampling plenty more beers.

Elaine and Neil flew home on Wednesday morning, and me and Craig did a little more exploring before heading to get on the overnight ferry back to Newcastle. Before we even set off for our trip we always said it would be nice to go home via Amsterdam and maybe get the ferry. We didn't dream that Elaine and Neil would come and meet us and that we would have such an awesome time. So it's nice our plans came to fruition! We all really loved Amsterdam- it's really laid-back and you never get bored of strolling along the picturesque canals.

On Wednesday evening we boarded the ferry and were pleasantly surprised by our room. We had bunk beds, a little sofa, a desk and an ensuite bathroom. Compact but cosy and more than we expected. We had packed a little picnic so we sat in our room to eat. The weather was calm so the ferry was quite still, so we slept like babies. We woke up on Thursday morning and went outside to Tynemouth coming into view in the distance. It felt very surreal that the trip we had looked forward to for about a year was already coming to an end! But what a trip it has been!! We had little idea what to expect when we set off exactly 6 months ago, but never dreamed it would be so rich and rewarding an experience.

So there we have it! 

2 people

6 months

12 countries

7 hosts

€3543

Countless good times

Week 25 (Sutomore): camping trip in Montenegro!

Our main task work-wise for this week was to paint Tamara and Charles' porch and balcony. We started with a coat of primer, which was really thin and dribbled down our arms while we tried to paint the ceiling above your head, then dried on our skin like PVA glue! After the primer dried we started on the first coat of paint. I didn't manage to get a great before picture, but the area to paint was quite big, with lots of fiddly edges and pillars so getting a first coat on took a couple of days.



We have also been helping Tamara set up an English school this week. Her first classes start next week so we have been helping to assemble desks and chairs and get the classroom ready to go.



We also had the pleasure of babysitting Sally and Stuart one evening this week. They were surprisingly easy to handle and were pretty happy spreading their toys around the living room, before climbing into the toy box. What one does the other copies. They have very different personalities and are very funny. Stuart is very quiet and totally chilled. Sally is a lot more vocal (although no proper words yet) and is the boss of her brother, taking toys off of him at every opportunity. Stuart is too chilled to care though so this rarely ends in tears.



Charles has been our first English host since our first host Diane, in France. Although we love Workaway for the opportunity to get to know a new culture, we have to admit it is quite nice having some home comforts after such a long time away from home. Charles cooked a curry for us- our first curry the whole trip (Indian food is not popular at all on the continent, its basically non-existent), as well as toad in the hole, and even a Sunday Roast! And there is English breakfast tea! Of course we have balanced this with some Montenegrin food, I particularly enjoyed Burek, a type of pastry filled with meat that Charles and Tamara brought home fresh from the bakery one morning.

At the weekend we set off in the car once again for Rijeka Crnojevica- a small village on the edge of a small tributary that leads into lake Skadar. The drive there was along a narrow windy road, with lots of hairpin bends and blind corners. Cue a slow drive with lots of horn beeping. The scenery accompanying our drive was pretty stunning and as the road was quite quiet we managed to pull over to get a cool shot of the car. We chose Rijeka Crnojevica to visit as Charles and Tamara kindly lent us their tent and I picked a campsite down by the river. After arriving we set off on a hike to Obodska Cave. Tamara has great knowledge of Montenegro and has so many recommendations for places for us to visit. When we said we were going to Rijeka Crnojevica Obodska Cave was her first recommendation. The hike was a 7km circuit, with the cave about 1km from the end. It was a great hike, if a little steeper than we expected based on the "easy" rating the route was given on the tourist info board! It has been a long running joke on our travels that Craig can't read a map, and although he tries to deny this we ended up taking a wrong turning and adding an extra (quite steep) kilometre onto our walk. Craig was not trusted with the map after this.



Arriving at the cave we were presented with some rather large boulders. We thought perhaps the walk ended here and you couldn't actually get inside the cave, however the markings we had been following continued over the rocks and right into the cave. So we set off climbing and clambering over the rocks. Definitely not "easy" in my book!! Craig ventured all the way into the cave and off into the dark, while I stayed on the outside and took some photos. The cave was a pretty impressive sight!



After our walk we set up our tent for the night and before heading to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We shared the mixed grill and it was absolutely delicious! Just what we needed. We headed back to camp and enjoyed a nice internet-free evening together around the campfire!



The next day we walked the other way up the road to Pavlova Strana viewpoint (also recommended by Tamara). The walk itself wasn't particularly exciting as it just followed the road but once you reach the viewpoint you can see for miles and the river does a big U-turn around the mountain in front of you.



Although it was only lunchtime we decided to head back to Sutomore, via a brief stop in Virpazar, a picturesque town on the edge of lake Skadar, as I started to feel unwell. I climbed into bed as soon as we got back and spent the afternoon feeling quite sorry for myself and the evening repeatedly vomiting. So typical when we are so close to the end of our trip!

This was our last week in Montenegro! We have been looking forward to Montenegro from the start of our trip and it definitely lived up to expectations - it is such a beautiful country! I've struggled to cram everything we got up to into the blog.

We have once again been lucky in finding amazingly generous hosts who we got on so well with. We really hope to return to see Charles and Tamara again in the future.

Next week we start our journey home!

Total joint spend: €2863