Croatia: Dubrovnik and GOT

Our time in Croatia ended up being split into two, since Croatia itself is split into two. One part, a very tiny part, consists of Dubrovnik and all of it's surrounding lands/islands.

History tells us that at one point, Dubrovnik feared for it's safety when their rival port city of Venice threatened to attack. As a result, the people of Dubrovnik figured it made more sense to give Bosnia and Herzegovina (then part of the Ottoman Empire) a strip of coastline to help create a buffer between them and their potential invaders. Hence, today's Croatia is split by a 12 mile gap of Bosnian land between the main Croatian landmass and it's southern most city, aka, the Neum corridor.

Coming from Montenegro, our first stop in another new country, was the beautiful city of Dubrovnik. This old port city is the richest city in Croatia, and it shows. Prices are sky high, from accommodations, to parking, to food. Relatively speaking of course (we had just come from Albania and Monteneg…

Hiking in Montenegro: Mrtvica Canyon - A Picture Guide

Since we wanted to do something outdoorsy, and the weather was finally cooperating, we decided to do a hike in central Montenegro. Phil originally found this hike for Mrtvica Canyon from two other blogger's websites: here and here. Their descriptions helped us immensely, but we still went through a bit of confusion along the trail. 
We drove from the coast inland, past Podgorica, and along the beautiful E65, a mountainous highway that followed the Moraça River with some spectacular views of the gorge. Instead of camping in the area, we stayed overnight at a huge pullout a few miles before the turnoff to the canyon. The next day, we turned off the main highway into the small town of Medjurecje, which was more a gathering of houses dispersed amongst fields. Since the Moraça river ran with the E65, we could see exactly where it branched off towards the canyon, becoming the Mrtvica River. Following some painted signs, tight turns and a patch of narrow, unstable dirt road, we turned i…

Montenegro and it's turquoise blue waters

Montenegro was another shift in culture from Albania. As soon as we'd crossed into the country, we had to switch gears from Albanian Lek, right back to Euros, even though Montenegro was not, that we knew, part of the EU. Things were also a little pricier than Albania, but then again, the difference in infrastructure was significant. However, the same beautiful turquoise blue ocean and rivers was still a welcome similarity between the two countries, and the coastline never failed to take our breath away. 
Our first stop was Ulcinj, a small port town, that wasn't quite big enough to host cruise ships, but was on the up and coming edge for revamping their appeal to Russian tourists. We hung out here and had a really excellent meal at a random restaurant that was open (many were closed as it wasn't at all tourist season yet), called Decanter. This place turned out to be AMAZING. Prices were still very reasonable, and the starter bowl (pretty big one too) of fish soup that I o…