Up at 07:00, breakfast of cereal and yoghurt, didn’t fancy the cold meats. Sunny day and warm, but apparently the next few days are going to be cold and wet.
Bus trip (which is our last, train from now on) took about 3.5 hours through some pretty valleys then onto a plain which wasn’t very interesting so I watched some TV.
Got to the bus station which was in a pretty crap area. As soon as we got off we were descended upon by men asking ‘Taxi? Taxi? Where you go? Airport?’
We walked to the hotel past the crumbling, graffiti-covered blocks of flats, turned right at the dead cat, carried on past the abandoned car and then left around the gloomy factory.
It turned out the gloomy factory was actually the hotel, complete with graffiti on the front.
We’d already pre paid, but I asked Song if she wanted to forfeit it and go elsewhere, but we thought we’d reserve judgement till we’d seen the room. It was actually ok, so we decided to stay. Reading the reviews on Tripadvisor you’d think it was the Hilton. It was clean and comfortable, a decent size and the bathroom was modern. We’ve stayed in worse in London and Paris.
Today was Easter Sunday, a holiday, so everything was shut, but we hoped to find a restaurant or cafe in the town centre which was open, so headed out, thankfully in the opposite direction from the bus station.
The place was a bit of a dump – uneven pavements, wires sticking up, rubbish and graffiti everywhere. The river had tons of rubbish floating, and it was all along the river bank as well.
But there were magnificent bridges and buildings along the river, so if you looked above the pavement it looked fabulous.
Stopped off at a restaurant that had a good choice, and fed up (literally) with fish for the last week, had a burger. And a beer. Song had black risotto, like I had in Kotor a couple of days ago.
Song liked hers, mine wasn’t very good – it looked the part with lettuce, tomato and cheese, but the meat tasted processed. Maybe I should stick to fish. Cost just over $16, so can’t complain about that.
Walked along the river bank, then turned into the most amazing town square we have seen – it was like a different country.
The square was white tiles, with the kind of fountain that has jets coming up that operate in patterns, in the main part of the square. To the rear of the square was a huge, 30m statue of Alexander the Great on horseback on top of a column with lions all around and statues of soldiers, also with the water jets. Unbelievable.
We took photos, then went back to the hotel a different way. Turned the corner and once again crappy blocks of flats with graffiti, rubbish everywhere, broken pavements, just awful. But loads of statues depicting famous people (I assume) and significant events of the country’s history (I assume). I think the government should spend more money on the basics and lay off the statue building for a while.
We hurried back to the hotel – we have all day tomorrow, and I didn’t want to be out after dark, it felt a bit iffy – the first time in all our travels, excepting possibly Morocco, that I thought it wouldn’t be safe.
We have all day tomorrow here, not a lot to do but there is an old town and fortress, and at least we’re not on a bus. We’ll just relax, and try not to get robbed.
