For me, a trip doesn't really begin until that first mouthful of fresh local food and chilled, exotically named brew has passed the lips. That happened in the evening of our first day, after picking the car up from Dubrovnik and making a dash for the Montenegran border. Along the winding road skirting the mountainous coast - which as seems to happen in so many border regions, changed abrubtly; it is immediately noticable how much far more lush and fertile Montenegro is than its northern neighbour - the first town is Herceg Novi. A little port with equally pretty old and new towns (an integration that appealed to me throughout this country), we selected a restaurant in a typically scientific fashion. A good view, nice outdoor deck and happy-looking locals ploughing in to fresh seafood.
As we sat and marvelled at the distance from England in both geography and about any other -graphy that you'd care to mention, the locals started to appear on their evening saunter along the harbourside promenade. It is a gait that has been refined to an artform in this part of the world - an almost exaggeratedly slow, rhythmic stroll designed specifically for getting nowhere fast, and enjoying the process. As the sun descends, children slalomming on roller blades and chasing soccer balls are calmly swayed around, never breaking the conversation which seems as much articulated by the hands as the mouth - something of an hypnotic event when witnessed by someone fresh from the eyes-down, straight-line, striding streets of London.
And then the food arrived, putting all thoughts of comparison to flight. Huge fresh oysters, calamari grilled to perfect, borderline-chewy tenderness, giant tomatoes thickly chopped with onion, olives and local cheese. The trip had started.
