Well actually the small (former Yugoslav republic) country of Montenegro isn’t much like Norway at all! But our stop in Montenegro is at the end of a 17 mile long “fjord”, the Bay of Kotor (often described as southern Europe’s most beautiful fjord, although strictly speaking a drowned river canyon) with at its tip, the incredibly picturesque Roman/Venetian city of Kotor.

It may look like a fjord, but this is the Kotor end of the17-mile long Bay of Kotor. Difficult to see from a couple of thousand feet above, but Sea Cloud can just be made out moored at a dock in the lower center of the photo. This view is taken from close to the top end of the Serpentine Road with its 25 hairpin curves, rightly described as one of the world’s most beautiful drives

Montenegro is a tiny country, now heavily dependent on tourism, whose some 650,000 inhabitants live in an area (so we’re informed) the size of Northern Ireland, Connecticut or Tasmania. The country does have a very checkered recent history and a mostly close relationship with Serbia. Our young guide tells us that she has lived in four countries, but never moved from the same town: Yugoslavia until its break-up in the 1980’s, the “rump” of Yugoslavia together with Serbia, the Union of Serbia and Montenegro and finally since 2006, the independent country of Montenegro.

With a shared ethnic background and a common religion (Serbian Orthodox) there has always been a close relationship between Serbians and Montenegrins. Unfortunately this relationship manifested itself in 1991 when the Serbs and Montenegrins joined forces in attacking Croatia and laying siege to Dubrovnik. It was Montenegrin forces that were responsible for a lot of the shelling of Dubrovnik.

Today though everything is peaceful and relations between the recent enemies are quite good