To cross the borders of non-EU countries is much like changing borders everywhere else. It's different to the usual way Australian's are used to since we have to board a plane to get to a different country. We were driving this time or course so when we got to the border and didn't see any scary men waiting to stop us and ask for our passports we drove slowly through the border - much like you do when driving from Germany (part of the EU) into Switzerland (not part of the EU). We vaguely saw a man in the booth rapidly motioning to us to stop but we had already passed the window so we had to sheepishly reverse back to the window and we gave it the standard Australian response to a dicky mistake, we laughed it off. The border control lady was not impressed. We were greeted with a rather stern look and a "what's so funny". That quickly shut us up. We all put our best serious face on and faced the front - not being game enough to look her in the eye. We handed over our passports and the angry lady begrudgingly stamped our passports and granted us permission to LEAVE Croatia - we hadn't even made it into Montenegro yet.
It was a long few kilometres drive to the next border crossing through "no man's land" and us with our over-active imaginations had visions of being stuck between two countries - a punishment from the scary lady for us giggling about almost leaving the country without her permission. To our relief we were granted access into Montenegro after we had our car boot searched to make sure we weren't smuggling any stowaway Croatians. The scenery changed from picturesque, sleepy, seaside towns to a place that reminded us somewhat of our 2009 travels to India and Nepal. The roads were winding through unkept, jungle style foliage and run-down convenience stores with tiny, rusty cars parked out the front. That was, until we drove around the side of a mountain and saw one of the prettiest views on the trip - the charming Bay of Kotor. Unfortunately my photo taking skills don't quite do it justice but you'll get the idea.
We had to stop and soak in the view. We were greeted by some rather friendly doggies who reminded me of something out of Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
We arrived at the restaurant and quickly realised that we had driven the couple of hours without checking beforehand if the place even had any vegetarian food. A quick peruse of the menu and we discovered that there were indeed meal options for Julian and I. The restaurant was called Catovica Mlini and it was situated in the village of Morinj. We walked down the bamboo covered pathway and were in awe of our beautiful surroundings. There were enchanting outdoor settings for people to appreciate a fantastic meal in the cool, night air.
Our waiter was very attentive. Before too long we were seated with menus, our orders were taken, our bread and wine had arrived and our bibs (yes, bibs) were hung around our necks. It is primarily a seafood restaurant (hence the bibs) and apparently even if you aren't sampling their fresh seafood fair you got a bib anyway. We couldn't resist a quick snap of our funny attire.
We savoured our time in this beautiful place and took our time eating our meals, drinking our wine and eating our desserts. Usually I would refrain from ordering all of the trappings that go with a typical European meal but since we were in a country where things are significantly cheaper than Switzerland, I decided to let loose and order up big. In the end it cost about 20 Euros each which is quite cheap considering all of the food, wine and coffee we had.
We quickly realised that it's definitely worth listening to recommendations from our trusty apartment lady. She didn't lead us astray at all. I quite like going for adventures to different countries for dinner, it's something that I'll miss once we return to Australia.
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