I’m still full of cold and enjoy spending ages painting and catching up with ‘daily draws’ at the campsite, after taking down my tent. When I finally leave I snatch views of the coastline whilst avoiding cars on the busy road. I met 5 other cycle tourists (I’m seeing more and more the further south I go). These young lads are from France, travelling light and on fast road bikes and are heading for Albania too. I wave goodbye to them at a supermarket – and then find my campspot not a few miles further on – at Milko’s Pension. I meet his young son Ivan, initially, who said I could indeed camp there and got me a beer. He’s studying architecture – in his first year – in Dubrovnik. Lydia and Milko turn up as I’m supping my beer and invite me to share their evening meal – a picnic of salad, cold, roast pepper in oil, bread, cheese, ham etc. It’s lovely to eat as part of the family – along with Milko’s 92yr old mother (who looks amazingly fit and well).
They tell me that they have four children and one grandson. Their house was gutted during the war that marked the dissolution of Yugoslavia – just four walls left standing. They have had to ‘work, work, work’ to recoup their losses and get to where they are now – a successful guest house which still manages to make ends meet in winter as it’s only 10km from the airport and not far from the Montenegro border. Lydia and Milko are both local – they used to go to school in Montenegro, when it was all still Yugoslavia. There are few people around here, they say, and no need to emigrate.
I feel enveloped with yet more kindness – and Milko would only take €10 for everything – camping on the lawn (which was green from regular watering and had just been mown by young Ivan) – meal, beer, morning coffee, charging of laptop.
They tell me that they have four children and one grandson. Their house was gutted during the war that marked the dissolution of Yugoslavia – just four walls left standing. They have had to ‘work, work, work’ to recoup their losses and get to where they are now – a successful guest house which still manages to make ends meet in winter as it’s only 10km from the airport and not far from the Montenegro border. Lydia and Milko are both local – they used to go to school in Montenegro, when it was all still Yugoslavia. There are few people around here, they say, and no need to emigrate.
I feel enveloped with yet more kindness – and Milko would only take €10 for everything – camping on the lawn (which was green from regular watering and had just been mown by young Ivan) – meal, beer, morning coffee, charging of laptop.
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