Montenegro was the last country on our tour of the Balkans. Translating to 'Black Mountain'', the country shares a common history with nearby Serbia of being conquered by different empires over the centuries, due to its geographic location as the crossroads of 'East and West'. Our interest in visiting this country was the UNESCO listed Bay of Kotor. In order to reach this site, we flew from Belgrade to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica and booked a private transfer to the coastal (party) town of Budva. In the height of summer, this town was buzzing with super-yachts and electronic music pounding the centuries old fortress walls.
Belgrade to Podgorica
We flew into Podgorica on Day 19 of our big trip. Our first impressions were of a mountainous region with peaks exceeding 2000 metres in elevation. When we landed in Podgorica, we immediately found our private transfer to Budva. Various travel forums had advised us to exit Podgorica and head for the coast. We took this advice and our driver commented on the close proximity of Albania - a country that we had not visited but we ran out of time to rush across and tick off that passport stamp.
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| Mountains of Montenegro. |
Budva
Budva is a town on the Adriatic Sea. It is part of a wider riviera full of historic walled cities, diverse nightlife and hotels entertaining families, backpackers and super-rich Russians. As Montenegro is one of the eastern European cities that accept Euro for currency, it was convenient that we did not have to carry yet another set of notes and coins.
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| View of historic Budva |
Keeping true to our familiar pattern of staying within the historical part of town, we had booked a room in a Bed and Breakfast (Apartments Bella), close by the gates of the walled city. The cobblestone streets provided the authentic medieval experience. However little did we know that ancient stone walls provide great amplification for late night music festivities that were held right next to the ancient port.
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| Cafes lining the walls surrounding Budva |
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| The entrance to our Bed and Breakfast |
Budva in the peak of summer holidays was filled with tourists, visiting the walled city, lazing on the small beach and just enjoying a holiday atmosphere. After lunch - a meal of meat and beer, the heat got a bit much from Mei and whilst she settled into the room, Olie exited the small opening of the city walls and took a dip in the bay.
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| Sunseekers at the beach |
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| View from the city walls |
Nightlife
After dinner we followed a concrete path that linked the historic walled area to the modern area of Budva. It was like time-travelling centuries, as the paved stone structures were replaced by modern shops, traffic lights and a night-market selling food and toys. The atmosphere reminded us of Brighton Beach in the UK - a little bit of a tacky amusement park that was popular with young people. A replica Dinopark could be visited for only 3 euro, however the Winnie the Pooh toys were adorned with sinister ammunition - definitely not child-friendly.
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| This confused us |
Day 2 - Kotor
When we did research for this trip, we chose Budva as our 'base' instead of the quieter Kotor. There was more variety in accommodation in Budva, as well as restaurants and night-life. Kotor is another historic city surrounded by Venetian fortifications. Located on the Bay of Kotor, it is popular with cruise ship passengers.
*TRAVEL TIP* One piece of advice for future travels that we may heed is as follows:
Cruise ship timetables are set years in advance and cruise-ship calendars- for example: http://www.cruisecal.com/portal/ can be helpful whereby you look up the port and can assess the number of ships that will be around and coincide with your own travels. The reason we give this advice is that whilst Cruise Ship passengers help the local economy, it can make a small town or beach very crowded. If you have flexibility on your travels to 'pick a different date' - maybe it is sometime to consider.
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| Cruise ship in Bay of Kotor |
Transport to Kotor
Catching the bus from Budva to Kotor was the easiest option. There are many websites / travel forums that will provide the necessary advice and in the Balkans, English is widely spoken.
To avoid the heat, we caught an early bus and the travel time was under an hour. The bus dropped us off at a small bus terminal. To avoid a costly taxi ride back to Budva, our advice is to always work out the timetable for the return bus and never rely on taking the 'last service' - this is because it might be over-subscribed or get cancelled, leaving you with no return vehicle.
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| Bus station |
Exploring Kotor
Taking a photo of the tourist map, the main points of interest were the walls, church and a Castle high on the hill. The latter ended up being the first site we visited with Olie rationalising that we needed to get it 'done' before the midday sun was at its peak.
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| Map of Kotor |
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| Approaching the historic walled city |
Fortifications of Kotor
One of the historical characters who has featured in our blogs about Ravenna and Istanbul is the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. According to online sources, Justinian was involved in fortifying Kotor. However, the most notable structures are the work of the Venetians (with the Lion of St Mark), who occupied the area.
The fortifications cover an area of 4.5 km with a wall thickness of up to 16 m. To enter the city, a narrow passage way had to be crossed next to the moat. Thinking back to medieval times, this was a perfect defensive set up as any invading army would have to enter in a single file and be at the mercy of arrows or hot oil poured down murder holes.
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| At the entrance gate |
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| Beware the shark in the moat |
Castle of San Giovanni
At 280 metres on the mountain of St John, the castle was the first challenge of the day. Knowing that in about a month's time we were due on a 4 day trek in Peru to Machu Picchu, it was time to test our stamina and ability to walk uphill.
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| Fortifications going up the hill |
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| Zig Zag path to the castle |
From our viewpoint inside the walled town, the task to climb to the top of the mountain seemed very daunting. The narrow stone corridors did not offer any protection from the sun and wound back on themselves so it did not feel like much progress was being made during the ascension.
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| At the start of the climb |
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| View inside the stone corridors |
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| Narrow cobblestone paths |
Mei found the climb challenging and questioned her fitness ahead of the South America trip. Potentially a combination of heat stroke and travel fatigue, she struggled to reach the fortress. However with some well-needed rest stops, motivated by the promise of an ice-cold beer at the bottom - the view was worth the effort.
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| View from the fortress |
Lunch and Sightseeing
We descended in no time and went in search of somewhere for lunch and a cold beverage. The area near the cathedral had 'tourist trap' written all over it, but Mei experiencing 'hangry emotions' was not in a state to really care about the quality of the food. We eventually found a small restaurant that offered a set menu lunch and shade umbrellas that sprayed a cooling mist of water.
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| Church inside the old town, Kotor |
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| Lunch |
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| Beer! |
Refreshed, we spent the remaining couple of hours exploring the rest of the city and its narrow walkways.
Podgorica
On Day 3 and not bound by any time pressure to get to Podgorica, we opted to take the bus instead of a private transfer. The cost difference was significant and the bus ended up following a scenic route through the mountains. We arrived in the capital around midday and ended up walking a fair distance from the bus stop to our hotel - Hotel New Star - a very modern hotel next to a Mall and just outside the Old Town.
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| View on the trip to Podgorica |
Podgorica lacks historical architecture as as result of being razed to the ground during World War II where it was bombed over 70 times. A structure that has survived is the city clock tower, dating back to 1667. We passed it whilst walking to a restaurant for dinner - Stara Kuca (Old House) that looked like a traditional inn and we ate meat and local red wine.
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| City clock tower |
We finished off the night walking around the main square, seeing students sell text-books on the street and the admiring the modern architecture of the Millenium Bridge.
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| Selling textbooks on the street |
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| Millenium Bridge |
Next blog post:
London and Paris
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Montenegro was the last country on our tour of the Balkans. Translating to 'Black Mountain'', the country shares a common history with nearby Serbia of being conquered by different empires over the centuries, due to its geographic location as the crossroads of 'East and West'. Our interest in visiting this country was the UNESCO listed Bay of Kotor. In order to reach this site, we flew from Belgrade to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica and booked a private transfer to the coastal (party) town of Budva. In the height of summer, this town was buzzing with super-yachts and electronic music pounding the centuries old fortress walls.
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