MilesAstray | Montenegro
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essays | places


Montenegro

serving middle-class kings and queens

 

 

Kotor / Montenegro · 2017   cruise ship destiny

  

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   Montenegro sounded noble and it looked the part too as long as you didn’t move an inch away from the coast. The backsides of towns like Kotor and Budva looked a lot humbler. Cruise ships and gourmet restaurants would turn into produce sold out of car trunks. It was like coming back down to earth from the tacky heights that made those all-inclusive vacationers middle-class queens and kings for a week.

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a glimpse

 
Kotor / Montenegro · 2017   trunk market



 

 
Kotor / Montenegro · 2017   sea pool



 

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passages   ♫ | There is something very raw and honest and democratic and loving about busking. Giving out his innermost intimate, the artist is stripped of sheltering masks, naked, vulnerable, exposed to the judgmental and cursory gaze of passing strangers who hide in the anonymous darkness of their unbroken steps. The artist asks for nothing in return. He does not beg or insist. He trusts. The artist must be a lover. A lover of art and a lover of people.

 

 

 

 

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places / stories

Kotor / Cruise out of Control: Consumerism on Vacation, Ethics Left at Home

the ugly dynamics of a journey sold as destination

 

Of course, like with all needless and senseless consumption, the cheap cruise tickets came at a price. I had met those who pay it.

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Perast / Photos of What I Don't Remember

the historic old town of Perast, Montenegro

 
Perast / Montenegro · 2017   mountains between sea and sky



 

historic houses in Perast, Montenegro

 
Perast / Montenegro · 2017   blue molecules



 

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The sun started doing its limbo and the color temperature around me got a few degrees warmer, and the warmer it got, the more I felt those little islets that flecked the bay, the more I wanted to devour them whole.
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Perast / Montenegro · 2017   islet bits

The memory of what I ordered for dinner is forever lost in that warm ether, but I will never forget the view from that table because I took a picture of it. That’s not entirely true. In fact, I have no memory of it whatsoever and looking at this picture I am detached from it as much as I would be from a stranger’s picture.
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Perast / Montenegro · 2017   salt & vinegar

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A cruise ship leaving the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro

 
Perast / Montenegro · 2017   moving on to more of the same

 

 

 

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Budva & Sveti Stefan / Dialogue & Debate

Sea and old town of Budva, Montenegro

 
Budva / Montenegro · 2017   stone by stone

 
 


I met up with Irina, the Russian mother of two who looked more daughter than mother. When I first met her and her friend in Kotor, I thought she was a student. We walked around Budva for a while, where at least every other person was Russian.



 

historic houses in Budva, Montenegro

 
Budva / Montenegro · 2017   view with a view



 

historic houses with shingle roofs in Budva, Montenegro

 
Budva / Montenegro · 2017   shingaling



 

historic houses in Budva, Montenegro in black and white

 
Budva / Montenegro · 2017   old town stone



 

We decided to walk the ten kilometers to Sveti Stefan as well, all the while talking about very interesting things of which I remember exactly none. I do remember that the dialogue heated into boiling debate at times, but no one got burned and everything was as amicable as it was provocative.



 

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Sveti Stefan / Montenegro · 2017   private peninsula 


 

 
Sveti Stefan / Montenegro · 2017   Irina


 

Back in Budva, we had a drink and a coffee at her hotel's open bar and they were what you would expect, but more than I could have asked for.



 

a large hotel complex in Budva, Montenegro at night

 
Budva / Montenegro · 2017   mega hive





 

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elsewhere

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