A two and a half hour bus ride from Dubrovnik in Croatia lies the Bay of Kotor set in the rugged landscape of Montenegro – a country whose name means ‘black mountain’. I checked-in to a hostel in the old town for a couple of days to explore the medieval architecture and the surrounding hills…

It’s gonna rain tomorrow morning, they told me. So I went for an evening drink in the bar. The local firewater or ‘grappa’ differs slightly all over the Balkans but the effect is much the same – singing and dancing on tables is the norm. And I might have had more than one…

Finding that I had missed breakfast the next morning, I wandered into the Old Town to hunt down a local bakery and investigate its varieties of borek – the ubiquitous savoury pastries of the region – and try a shot of the local coffee. But as I walked out, the skies cleared from grey to blue and …

Continue reading this story in the Summer 2016 issue of Globe (free to all members).