Jungle of dreams: Montenegro.

                                    

Imagine: colours so vivid they seem to eat your eyes. Mountains arch their broad backs, like white striped tabby cats surrounding you on every side. A jumble of Greek, Roman Catholic and Venetian styled architecture. It is like a bricked medley flooding down the ancient streets. So steep it seems as if everything is about to fall into the glass clarity of the bay of Kotor.  

We spent our first day wondering in and out of the labyrinthine brick work of Herceg Novi. A tiny beach skidded out into the lapping waves, beneath the tiered streets that looked as though they were craved out of the cliff side.  

            Recently independent from Serbia, Montenegro is like a bubbly excited teenager who has been given its first chance at freedom. Giddy it welcomes you in. As if saying ‘see my beauty and love me’. It is desperate for acceptance in its new adult status. Hotels pop up like mushrooms overnight in the fertile atmosphere-the country seems to be impregnated with the desire to satisfy tourists.

            During the day, culture allures you to drink it in, with boat trips to the islands famously immortalised by Daniel Craig’s in his first Bond movie, Casino Royale, just off the coast of Perast.

We visited the man made island of Gospa od Skrpjela in Boka bay. A wedding ceremony was just ending on the church island, which was no bigger than a village parish. The bride’s veil was nearly swept away by the strong the bay winds. Flowers were lain around in glorious groups of gold, red, white and green, as if they were offerings to an ancient sea god. Their scents reeled together in a tapestry around the intricate building. From this island you could see another about two minutes boat ride away, smaller. Trees cloistered the building, which I later found to be called St. Djordje.  That unlike Gospa od Skrpjela, it is a natural island, not man made. Hidden away there is said to be a 12^th century Benedictine Monastery.

            Vincent Van Gogh said, ‘I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day.’ He should have travelled to Montenegro and he would have seen this statement dance in front of his eyes. Lights softly wink at you from across the bay, a night game of water polo (with a fluorescent ball) can often be found (since 2008 Montenegro has been the reigning European champions in the men’s water polo).  

Cafés and restaurants stage their own music that runs away into the evening air, fried fish with spices I can not distinguish, hot dough and tomatoes, crêpes, so many tangled flavours. An ice cream vendor is often easily found with giant tubs of flavours cramped into an open top freezer.

Smiles would erupt if you showed any favour to a particular vendor by revisiting; you would be welcomed like an old friend with blossoming hand gestures and deep throaty laughter. It seems more like a travelling circus than a normal city, with the streets alive with entertainment and food. You feel as if you are flooded with a magnum of possibilities. This country offers up new, exciting and undiscovered dreams; and if you look closer and deeper inside its kaleidoscopic jungle of culture, colour and people, you will find a new adventure.

 Famous faces

·   Holly Valance (well known for her role as Flick in Neighbours and hit sing of Kiss Kiss.) Her father was a Montenegrin; Holly’s birth name was Holly Rachel Vukadinovic.

·   Marijia Vujovic, (model for Dolce and Gabbana fragrance campaign and other major fashion houses) is a Montenegrin. She happens to also be the niece of the countries president, Filip Vujanovic.

·   The country has always entertained the famous, most especially on the island of Sveti Stefan. An island connected to the main land by a spit. It used to be a fishing village, now it is a massive hotel. It has visitors like: Sofia Loren, Carlo Bruni, Doris Day, Kirk Douglas, Sylvester Stallone and Jeremy Irons.