Since today is a rain day, we planned nothing until 4:00pm. We had breakfast about 9:00 and then grabbed our raincoats and umbrella to walk around town. Our first stop was some sort of monument that appeared to be honoring local men from World War II (at least the busts all had dates from that time). Behind the memorial was the only church in town. Luckily, the door was open. It was a really beautiful little church surrounded by a cemetery. The headstones were huge and all had pictures of the deceased. Didn’t take long to complete our tour of Zabljak. We did shop for some rain boots but were unsuccessful. We also stopped in a new wine shop hoping to find a corkscrew. They did not have one but the shopkeeper suggested some good local wines. We were successful in finally finding a corkscrew in the Voli grocery/department store. It, like everything else was closed yesterday. Nemanja had warned us of the Sunday closures. For a resort/ski town, we are a little surprised at the absence of gift shops - the Voli seems to be the only shopping.
Because we had not had a good cup of coffee since we’ve been in Montenegro, we went to Or’O Restaurant which had a coffee bar. It wa a really nice place and it was quite busy. We had Cafe Lattes which were really good. We noticed many people eating plates of fried dough with cheeses and jam. Guess it was their version of doughnuts.
At 3:30 we were picked up by Nemanja and Julia to go to the Eko Katun Durmitor (shepherd’s hut) for dinner. Our reservation was for 5:00 but Nemanja wanted to drive out to some viewpoints. We drove through the ski resort where many new mountain houses were being built. Most of the new construction was concrete block and wood siding would be put on as the final facade.
We saw several shepherd’s huts in the rocky valleys. When we reached one of the highest points on this mountainous, curvy, one lane (actually two) road, Dave got out and braved 40 mph winds and driving rain to get a picture. Nemanja thought about joining him (out of obligation), cracked the door, that’s as far as he got. Sue said, just because he is crazy, doesn’t mean you have to be.
All back in the car, we drove down to the Eko Katun Durmitor for dinner. Nemanja had to call and wake up the owner. Nemanja made himself at home turning on a heater and a few lights. We must say, upon entering the hut where we would be dining, we knew they would never pass a sanitation inspection. When the owner arrived, he offered us homemade plum and apple brandy and left to go help with the preparation of the food.
We past the time by looking around the hut which was decorated with old farming equipment, old shepherd’s clothing, some new horse racing trophies and various artifacts.
Then, a woman came in and demanded to see the owner because she was very upset about the dog that was tied up outside in the rain. She was nearly in tears when she had an exchange with Nemanja. She had taken pictures and was going to turn the owner into the tourist agency. The dog was a real barker and we believed a car chaser, plus he was a shepherd’s dog who was used to the outdoors. Not sure what her objection was.
When the food was ready, many, many dishes were brought out. They were all typical, local dishes. Lots of meat and potatoes. Everything was really tasty except for one dish that had a lot of bacon, really lard, that was hard to get down. Really fun and interesting evening.
After dinner, we got in the car to leave and found ourselves stuck in the mud (it had been raining all day). Nemanja had parked very close to the house/hut because it was raining and as the wheels were spinning, the car started sliding very close to the house. Dave got out to push, Nemanja was very anxious that he was going to slide into the house. He called the owner who came out with a friend. The friend got behind the wheel and the other three pushed. Finally, the car was out and we were on our way. When we got back to the hotel, we discovered we had left our umbrella. Yulia and Nemanja drove back and retrieved it.
Good day, despite the rain. After two days of really hard hikes, we needed a down day.
2025-02-12