From Czech Republic to Montenegro

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After our fast departure from Ostrava, we had 5 hours to go to our first stop : Graz in Austria. The road was clear and we only had a little traffic jam but nothing too bad. On the road, Anne checked Graz for hostels but she couldn't find anything. In the end, we found a nice and cheap hotel near the city centre with parking (THE most important feature we wanted) and when we arrived, we saw that it was a wonderful hotel, much more worth than what we had paid. We were really happy, but a hot shower and a nice, comfortable bed were the only things that interested us after ice-cold showers at the camping in Ostrava.
We went to the city centre and when we finally found a nice restaurant, we were so happy that at 9:30 PM they still had food. So we had some pizza and pasta and some nice wine before we headed back to our hotel, completely exhausted from all the stress of this day and the festival.

The next morning, we got up early and we got some sandwiches at the train station before continuing our trip South to our next stop : Sarajevo. It was really funny to us crossing so many borders is such a short time : from Austria to Slovenia and to Bosnia. We couldn't believe it when we arrived at the Bosnian border, it seemed like we'd been in Slovenia only for a second and we were a bit angry we had had to buy a 15€ vignette for this short highway...
The road was good on this Sunday, only one big traffic jam before the Bosnian border, but there were so many police controls, we couldn't even count them! We were really happy and lucky we didn't get into one because I don't have an international driving licence and no spare light bulbs for my car, which could have cost us quite some money in Bosnia (really stupid if you ask me, I could even drive in Canada, the USA and Chile with my driving licence, why not in Bosnia!?).
We arrived in Sarajevo at 5 or 6 PM but first we couldn't find a parking spot. When we finally had found our hostel, the parking that belonged to it and checked in, it was around 7 PM. First we went for a walk in the city centre, then we walked up to a viewpoint and finally we went to an amazing restaurant for dinner. It took quite some time before we got our meal (1 vegetarian plate, 1 steak with cranberry sauce and 1 chicken in saffron sauce) but it was really delicious. We also had a big beer and a bottle of expensive wine but in the end we paid only like 25€ for everything which makes it the probably cheapest meal of our trip. On our left, there was an elderly French couple who was arguing all the time, on our right 3 German guys who tried to hit on us, so we were very happy when they were finally gone. Our waiter was very friendly and offered us a grappa when we left (it was more like a liquor but real good). We had a fantastic evening.
Our hostel, the Hostel City Center Sarajevo, was wonderful, the stuff helpful and friendly, rooms comfortable and breakfast delicious. The only bad thing was that they had a problem with hot water and I had to take a freezing cold one, but fortunately they repaired it before Anne got up and took her shower.

The next day, on Monday, we left early to get to Montenegro, but as always we left later than planned. It was easy to get out of the city, but quite soon we got lost and we had to take a small route on the mountains that seemed never to end. It was exhausting and we were both in kind of a bad mood because of this huge detour. When we finally arrived to the town we had wanted to get to, we were really relieved. There it was a bit difficult to find the way to Montenegro because there were almost no signs, like everywhere in Bosnia and in Montenegro. So we were happy when a police man stopped us so we could ask him where to go to. In the same time, this spared us a police control... ^^ Driving through Bosnia had been exhausting and difficult, we never knew where we were because there were no indications on the road and I never knew how fast I could drive, speed limit signs being really bad or inexistent. This would be the same thing in Montenegro where I never drove more than 60 km/h because I didn't see any speed limit indications.

At the border to Montenegro we were very lucky, we were almost the only car there so that all went fast. Later at the camping a German guy would tell us that at the other border we had considered taking they had had to wait 1:30 to get to Montenegro. That's how we got to Montenegro : exhausted but with new hope and with a step input passport that made Anne very happy. :-)

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