John Edward Cooper’s Notes

DAY 2 - BUDVA & WINE TASTING


Budva Old Town

After breakfast, we will discover Budva’s delightful Old Town and marina, with a local guide.

In the afternoon, we drive to the Šipčanik wine cellar. Occupying what was once an underground military aircraft hangar, it was abandoned after NATO bombing in 1999 and now houses around 2 million litres of wine. Here we will have a guided tour and enjoy a wine-tasting.[i]

[i] This was the itinerary that tour manager Andrew had posted:

Day 2 - 09.00 Depart for guided walking tour of Budva old town.
Gather in Hotel Reception. We’ll travel to Budva. then have a guided tour of the old town with a local guide. After: free time for further exploration/lunch. Then: reconvene at 12.15 and depart by coach for wine-tasting at Plantaze winery. Return to hotel at 5pm approx. Dinner is at your own arrangements this evening.

Janet vacated the bathroom at 7.05am. Before I used the bathroom, she pointed out the multitude of what I identified as house martins flying around outside the window. I shaved and showered…. I wasn’t really aware of what Janet was doing meanwhile.
 “A bad night,” she wrote: “very little sleep. It was light by 6.15am, thank goodness. I was up, 6.45am. [I] washed, dressed and went down to Reception to see about transferring. I was told we would know around 12 noon so, once back in the room, I told [John] and we decided we’d miss our afternoon tour of a wine tasting, and return to the hotel and find out if we can move.
 “I saw a huge flock of ‘swallows’[ii] whizzing about for ages — having a good time! — and that made me feel a bit better. [We went down for] breakfast. [When we were] back in the room, Reception phoned to advise we had another room. [We went down] to Reception. We were given ‘805’ in Block B[iii] so [we] went and looked at it — actually, better than ours!”
 By now it was ca.8.45am, and we were supposed to be departing for Budva old town at 9.00am. It was suggested that we could go on this morning’s tour, and in our absence the hotel staff would move our luggage from the old room to the new room — but that presupposed that we could get everything back in the cases in 10 minutes or so!
 “We decided we’d skip [the whole of] today’s tour and sort our stuff to move,” Janet continued. “I packed — [it] took me nearly an hour — then we vacated the room and took our stuff to ‘805’.”

[ii] This is footnoted “house martins”.
[iii] I’m confused now as to which was “Block A” and which was “Block B” for, on my previous description of the layout of the hotel, Room 805 would be in Block A.

Wallet for the new key-card


Friday 8 September 2023 10:06:42
Room 805, Hotel Ami, Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 10:07:04
Room 805, Hotel Ami, Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 10:07:30
Views from Room 805, Hotel Ami, Petrovac, with a house martin visible


Friday 8 September 2023 10:07:36
Views from Room 805, Hotel Ami, Petrovac, with house martins visible

“Before continuing,” Janet wrote, “I needed a break so we headed for the beach and had a drink at the Cuba Bar. [It was] already pretty hot — ca.10am.” She also needed dental floss, and she’d found that the little disc of soap provided by the hotel made her skin dry and inflamed; so first we went to the nearby supermarket for some Colgate dental floss and a cake of Palmolive soap.


Receipt from the “Aroma” supermarket; receipt printed, “10:17:57”


Bill from “Cuba”, printed, “10:29:04”


Friday 8 September 2023 10:40:18
Refreshments at promenade bar/restaurant “Cuba”, Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 10:49:54
Views from promenade bar/restaurant “Cuba”, Petrovac: Castello


Friday 8 September 2023 10:50:14
Views from promenade bar/restaurant “Cuba”, Petrovac: Sveta Neđelja islet and church, and behind it Katič islet

Back at the hotel, Janet did the unpacking. My only task was to set up the computer on the desk or dressing table.… We asked at Reception about buses to Budva, and were told that the bus stop was on the road running parallel to the back of the hotel (not in those words, though!). And so we found without difficulty the metal and glass bus shelter towards the west end of that road. A timetable was affixed to the glass, and we saw that buses to Budva ran every hour at ten minutes past the hour, and at at ten minutes past the hour back from Budva. When it came, I commented, “This is like a dolmuş.” In fact, after we were seated, I concluded that it was a dolmuş when I saw a sticker “ACİL ÇIKIŞ” on the skylight above us. I thought, “The only language I’ve encountered that uses S-cedilla is Turkish.” The tickets were issued by the driver as we boarded: €3.50 each. “Cheap,” commented Janet in her journal, adding that at home the bus was “£2.00 to Asda”.




Tickets for the journey from Petrovac to Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 12:14:12
Aboard a dolmuş providing the “Mediteran Express” service from Petrovac to Budva

“It took 40 minutes,” she added: “Such beautiful scenery!”
 In Budva the bus service terminated on a road going through a small park, with palm trees and oleanders. (We thought we might encounter the Riviera Travel group in Budva, and be able to join them for the afternoon trip; but that didn’t happen. In fact, if I’d have thought to look at the itinerary that Andrew had posted, instead of only doing so later at 17:35:06 (see below), I’d have realised that the group was due to “reconvene at 12.15”, which was only just after we’d boarded the dolmuş in Petrovac.) All we could see around the park in all directions was modern buildings, and it wasn’t obvious from where we stood where the old city was; so we asked someone, who pointed us down a dual carriageway, a continuation southwards of the road we were on, with an instruction to take a left turn down there. It wasn’t clear to us where the intended left turn was, but when the road seemingly continued as a car park we turned to the left down a footpath. This ended at a T-junction with another road, on the other side of which was a park (Gradski Park), and on the right corner of which was a bar, where we stopped for refreshments. I had a game try at pronouncing the brand of Serbian beer that I had: “Zaječarsko”/«Зајечарско».


Bill from “Hemingway”, printed, “12:52:09”


Friday 8 September 2023 12:57:46
Refreshments at the “Hemingway” bar, Budva

Janet wrote, “I summoned a customer, thinking he was a waiter, and apologised profusely when I realised he was a customer!” He was with friends at the table adjacent to us on the left, and when I saw that two of them were drinking clear liquid from small glasses, I asked them what it was. I was hoping, of course, that it would be their local pomace brandy equivalent of grappa; and, indeed, it was! It’s called “rakija” here. Janet continued: “I then asked ‘the customer’ to bring us a grappa and a Coke Zero (joking, of course); and one of his friends loved that, and gave me the thumbs-up of approval. We all laughed!” We ordered rakija and water.


Friday 8 September 2023 13:19:44
Refreshments at the “Hemingway” bar, Budva, including rakija

When we decided to leave, I took the first bill to the counter to pay what was owing, saying that we hadn’t had the bill for the second round; and the server told me that it had been already been paid. It was the friend who had given the thumbs-up, according to Janet, who had paid it. “He’d gone,” she added. “We asked his friends to thank him for us. I was touched I made him laugh!” Just south of there (to the right, from the point of view of the two photos, above) were the walls of the old city. We entered, but only visited briefly, for we intended to come back on our free day.


Friday 8 September 2023 13:52:12
(Right:) north-west corner tower of the Old City, Budva, and (left:) an entrance on the north side


Friday 8 September 2023 13:53:34
Entrance to the Old City, Budva, on the north side near the north-west corner tower


Friday 8 September 2023 13:54:18
A quick look in the Old City, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 13:54:52
A quick look in the Old City, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 13:55:54
A quick look in the Old City, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 13:58:00
View west from near the entrance in the north wall of the Old City, Budva: the north-west corner tower


Friday 8 September 2023 13:58:18
View north from near the entrance in the north wall of the Old City, Budva: (left:) Gradski Park; (right:) Dukley Marina


Friday 8 September 2023 13:58:56
View east from near the entrance in the north wall of the Old City, Budva: (left:) an angle in the north wall

In front of the northern wall of the old city was what reminded us of the “Tsar Bell” in the Kremlin, Moscow, but it was a replica bell made of fibreglass or some such material. (It apparently has no historical significance, being just a leftover prop from a movie that was made there.)


Friday 8 September 2023 14:00:04
(Right:) angle in the north wall of the Old City, Budva; (foreground:) model of a “Tsar Bell”-style bell

By it, though, was a “J”-shaped anchor, which was real, and which reminded me of one of the “Mog” stories: Jonezine №2:

Mog boarded Mog’s Boat with a great sense of relief. But his euphoria
was momentarily disturbed as suddenly he caught sight of the anchor which
had been placed on deck for repair. One of the arms had broken off and the
anchor resembled a great letter J. Mog’s brow wrinkled — “Where have I seen
that before... Wha... wha... Why does it seem familiar?” Even a blow on the
brow with the heel of his hand did not help matters. However, his instant of
paramnesia was soon past, and looking at the J again he could not understand
what he had seen in it.

This anchor showed no sign of ever having been broken; it appeared to have been cast in the shape of a “J”.


Friday 8 September 2023 14:02:02
“J”-shaped anchor and model of a “Tsar Bell”-style bell outside the north wall of the Old City, Budva

From there, we wandered along the marina, then went in the adjacent Gradski Park to use the toilets.


Friday 8 September 2023 14:03:18
Dukley Marina, Budva: red mini-submarine


Friday 8 September 2023 14:03:42
Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:05:38
Gradski Park, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:07:12 (detail)
“Statue of Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša, writer–diplomat (1824–1878)”, Gradski Park, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:07:12
Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša statue, Gradski Park, Budva

One of the two doors of the toilet block was labelled “Muški” and the other “Ženski” (“male” and “female”, respectively). The only thing about that, which I found confusing, was that I’d understood the title “Cheryomushki” of the Shostakovich operetta to mean “cherry trees”, not “cherry males”! There were a man and a woman seated between the entrances accepting our €1 each for the use of their facilities. The man wore shorts and had a fly-swatter in his hand, with which he was trying to kill the flies which kept landing on his bare legs. Janet’s tale is no less bizarre: “I couldn’t reach the way-up-high flush, so told the female attendant. That’s a first!”
 “I suggested a boat ride,” she wrote next, “including a visit to some caves, so we hired a ‘water taxi’. A young man. There was only us. It was marvellous. I was mesmerised by the caves. I felt a bit queasy when I got back on shore.”


Friday 8 September 2023 14:18:56
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:19:30
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:20:48
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:22:02
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: parasailing


Friday 8 September 2023 14:23:20
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Old City


Friday 8 September 2023 14:24:56
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Old City


Friday 8 September 2023 14:25:38
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Old City


Friday 8 September 2023 14:28:04
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:29:06
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:30:14
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:31:14
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:31:30
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:32:58
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:33:42
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:34:08
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:35:44
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:36:12
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:37:58
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:38:50
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:41:24
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:41:36
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:41:52
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:43:58
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:44:50
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:45:14
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:45:50
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Sveti Nikola Island


Friday 8 September 2023 14:46:40
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:47:14
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Old City


Friday 8 September 2023 14:47:34
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: cliffs and caves west of Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:48:22
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:49:54
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Old City


Friday 8 September 2023 14:50:32
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:51:52
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: Old City


Friday 8 September 2023 14:53:40
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: parasailing


Friday 8 September 2023 14:54:12
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: parasailing


Friday 8 September 2023 14:54:48
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva: parasailing


Friday 8 September 2023 14:56:14
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva


Friday 8 September 2023 14:57:44
Boat trip from Dukley Marina, Budva

The cost of the trip was €30, and I’d given the young man a €50 note, for which he didn’t immediately have change. “Just after we left,” Janet wrote, “the young man caught us up to give us our change: €20. [John] had forgotten about that. Again, I was touched. So honest! I teared up! More kindness!” — the first example of kindness being the buying of rakija by the man at the Hemingway bar.
 Between the park and the marina was a pub, The Old Fisherman Pub, where I had a 0.33ℓ bottle of Nikšićko Tamno (“6.2% a.b.v.,” I noted) and Janet had a Coke Zero.


Friday 8 September 2023 15:03:28
Refreshments at “The Old Fisherman Pub”, Budva


Bill from “Fisherman’s Pub”, printed, “15:15:18”


Friday 8 September 2023 15:19:40
Refreshments at “The Old Fisherman Pub”, Budva

Then we crossed Gradski Park, and returned by the way we had come to get the “Mediteran Express”, scheduled for 16:10.


Friday 8 September 2023 15:51:52
Gradski Park, Budva

The vehicle which we boarded was a coach not a dolmuş, about which Janet expressed disappointment: “Unfortunately, it was a coach. Damn!” (Indeed, that first ride was the only one that we would have on a dolmuş; the rest would be by coach.) On the way back to Petrovac, a ticket inspector came by; the only tickets I could find on a hurried search of my person were the outward ones, a fact which he didn’t appear to notice. That was not a significant deception, because we had, in fact, purchased tickets, as the evidence below indicates.




Tickets for the journey from Budva to Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 16:15:50
Aboard the “Mediteran Express” coach from Budva to Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 16:37:38
Views from the “Mediteran Express” coach from Budva to Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 16:38:24
Views from the “Mediteran Express” coach from Budva to Petrovac: Sveti Stefan


Friday 8 September 2023 16:56:24
The “Mediteran Express” coach from Budva at its terminus in Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 17:35:06
Riviera Travel itinerary, posted in the lobby of Hotel Ami, Petrovac

Janet recalled, “I asked at the hotel about a pharmacy, as I was hoping to get some earplugs.” The receptionist pointed us towards the road running parallel to the hotel to the north. When we got there, we found no fewer than three pharmacies; we entered the one on the left (south) side of the road. “Our first one (there were three) had some,” Janet wrote. “I mimed what I required to the young woman and she understood. I purchased two pairs, then we started to say ‘Thanks!’ in all different languages. She joined in, and we had a good laugh. We returned to the hotel, then went for dinner at ca.5.30pm.”
 We went to Restoran Paradiso. We’d spotted it yesterday, and decided that we’d go to it this evening. “[John] had Mexican chicken and I had fresh tuna salad,” Janet wrote. “I enjoyed that despite the lettuce being very salty. Wow!”


Bill from “Paradiso”, printed “17:45:08”


Friday 8 September 2023 18:09:10
Dinner at “Paradiso”, Petrovac


Friday 8 September 2023 18:43:34
Views from the promenade, Petrovac: south-east


Friday 8 September 2023 18:43:52
Views from the promenade, Petrovac: west

“We left, and en route back to the hotel we bought a couple of nectarines and scoffed them in the park. Scrumptious! We discovered an open P.O. (it was 7pm!) with an ATM. We’ll use that next [time we need a supply of cash].”
 On a grassed area, by the path from the promenade to the road that runs south of the hotel, a couple of women had set up a stall and were selling fruit.[iv] On the other side were closed shops, closed permanently by the look of them; but just around a corner was a post office, which was still open. We noted that it had two useful things: a post box and an ATM. The son (we assumed) of one of the fruit vendors, a fat little boy, clutching a very big hamburger, sat opposite us and proceeded to eat it. Despite feeling sorry for him — obese, and likely by his dietary habits to become more so — we referred to him as “Burger Boy”.

[iv] Janet would refer to them on 12 September 2023 as “The Farmers”.

Friday 8 September 2023 18:59:48
Eating a nectarine from vendors on the way back to Hotel Ami, Petrovac: (background:) “Burger Boy”, the vendors’ son


Friday 8 September 2023 19:00:16
Eating a nectarine from vendors on the way back to Hotel Ami, Petrovac: (background:) “Burger Boy”, the vendors’ son

“We saw Andrew in the hotel lobby and updated him about our day and assured him that we were fine,” Janet wrote.
 …I transferred 76 photos from the camera’s SD card to a new subfolder in “2023” in “Documents” on the Samsung computer (19:34–19:36 CEST).…
 That noisy, noisome, intrusive wailing, masquerading as “singing”, came again from down below, but I was able to reduce much of its audibility by shutting the door to the balcony and having the air-conditioning fan on at its maximum setting. In this new room was a hotel information book. The old room either hadn’t been provided with one, or it had escaped my notice. I was really pissed off to read in it:

Please do not make noise that would disturb other guests in the rooms, corridors and public areas of the Hotel, especially from 10.00pm to 7.00am.

Why was it not OK for guests to disturb other guests after 10pm, yet it was OK for the hotel to employ that bastard to do so till ca.10.45pm every night?! May Hotel Ami, Petrovac, burn to the ground or be destroyed in an earthquake! May that bastard be totally robbed of his voice for seven years, during which time he will come to total poverty and near starvation (though afterwards, may God restore his fortunes, but not to disturb, annoy and upset people)![v]

[v] This imprecation comes from after I got home and started my efforts to write up the account of the events of the holiday. Time will tell whether I’ll let the issue go completely. It is much more moderate, though, than the contemporary writing from 9 September 2023: “As we were approaching the hotel I was taken by surprise by the noisy, noisome putative ‘entertainment’. In the enjoyment of the evening, I’d completely forgotten about it. Rage welled up in me, and I cursed him repeatedly and very loudly to die.”

 …I was having bouts of diarrhoea.… I went to bed at 21:10 CEST. Janet was still updating her journal till 21:37. The sounds from below were disturbingly audible, even with the balcony doors closed and the air-conditioning fan on full power.
 Janet’s version of events after we got back to the room is as follows: “It was ca.7.30pm. I had a shower, and at 7.45pm ‘it’ started. So we shut the balcony door and put the air con. on. I did my teeth, sorted my bag for tomorrow, and updated this. It’s 9.30pm and [John]’s in bed. He has ‘the runs’, as usual [when we go away], so I hope he’ll be OK tomorrow. I’ll now have a pee, get some earplugs in, go to bed, and go to sleep. I will not let that bastard grind me down. F— him.”
 Tomorrow, she would add: “He finally stopped at ca.10.50pm. At one point earlier I was in bed ([John] too). The air con. was on. The balcony door was shut. I had ear-plugs in, the covers over my head, and I could still hear him. He sang Delilah, and I was singing the words along with him in my head. He sang continuously for three hours: it was torture for me really. Later, I opened the balcony door and turned the air con. off (I hate that on) — and took my ear-plugs out. Peace!”

[Saturday 9 September 2023]