Finally, after two planned trips to Montenegro that were canceled because of Covid, we left Baltimore around 4:30pm for a 10:35pm flight out of Dulles. Concerned about terrible rush hour traffic, we got to the Best Western Hotel to park our car about 5:30pm. We got on the airport shuttle at 6:00pm and we were through Security by 6:30pm. What to do now that we had 3 hours to kill? We checked several airport lounges to see if we qualified and finally ended up at a bar that offered the Orioles. We got a bottle of wine and watched until the Orioles prevailed! We found out later that the Air France lounge was a short way from our gate. Our seats offered an empty seat between us which was appreciated. The dinner offered was pasta or salmon and, amazingly, the pasta was depleted by the time they got to us. The salmon was actually very good. We also realized that the aisle and window seats did not recline, but the middle seat did. Dave’s leg was bothersome so he took the middle seat. Neither of us slept much. Breakfast was fruit and pancakes.
Upon arrival in Istanbul, we checked a few more lounges and ended up getting cafe au lait and a cappuccino at a coffee bar. The Istanbul Airport is really modern and had unlimited high-end shopping and lots of Duty Free Shops. We also got an hours worth of free wifi. We bought a bottle of Medoc wine at a Duty Free Shop to have when we arrived in Montenegro. We lived on Medoc Drive in New Orleans. Everything went well with check-in and travel between Istanbul and Podgorica, Montenegro. We easily negotiated Customs, got our two bags, and found our Guide/Driver, Nemanja. With him was a young woman, Yulia. We began our long drive from Podgorica to Zabljak that was supposed to take 2-1/2 hours. Unfortunately, it was dark so we could not appreciate the landscape. Nemanja pointed out various points of interest along the way. About halfway to Zabljak, the car starting sputtering and finally quit. It was a curvy, mountainous road with no shoulder. It turned out that the car was rented from a “sort of” friend with a small fleet and they discussed the gas situation and Nemanja said he would fill it up. He forgot and there we were. He called a taxi to bring us gas. It was a bit terrifying since there was no shoulder and it was curvy and mountainous. Almost every other car stopped to check on us and an off duty police officer spent a lot of time with us. An Albanian was the best support because he stayed behind us with his flashers on until we got gas. The taxi driver led us back to where the gas station was so that we could fill up. It was exactly 100 Euro for a tank of 64 liters of gas. Back on the road, we took a really hairpin turn drive to Zabljak and frankly thought it would never end. We got checked into our hotel around 12:30. It was a very long, exhausting day, but we made plans for breakfast with Nemanja for breakfast the next morning. It was nearly 1:30 before we finally headed to bed. Alarm set for 7:30, meant it would be a short night.
2025-02-14