A Week in Montenegro

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Day 3

The next morning we were up and out and wandered down to the beach. We wanted to try and get onto the island at Sveti Stefani. We knew it had been turned into a hotel, but understood that we might be able to visit it – at a cost. We walked (the back way) i.e more stairs and through some woody bits and eventually found ourselves by the beach. We walked to the causeway which led to the island, and were promptly stopped by security. The guard in the hut explained that we could only go over if we were paying guests or were having dinner over there. We wheedled, but it didn’t work, we were going to have to miss it. We left and walked a little along the pebbly public beach (we weren’t allowed on the hotel beach unless we paid an extortionate amount of money). It was the closest we were going to get to Sveti Stefan island, but to be honest, it probably looked more beautiful from the outside than inside (we told ourselves), and at least we could feast our eyes on the view. Those based in the hotel only had the mainline village/town to look at – which to be honest was pretty scrubby.

Back in the car (feeling confident now) we drove to Budva. On the way through Budva, the previous day, we couldn’t work out how to get to the old town, through luck we managed to find our way and although it’s a little confusing we simply drove to where the road ended (along the seafront) and used the nearby carpark. We knew that we were ‘somewhere’ as it was busier than the other places we had visited. We also knew this was a rich haven as there were boats (or are they yachts?) gleaming in the harbour. We watched as they were washed and polished by the bronze young crews. There was perhaps a hint of jealousy as we watched them. Just a little, mind.

We walked around the outside of the town and then ventured in. It’s a typical walled town with winding streets and small squares. What is not typical though is that it was hit heavily by the earthquake of 1979 and apparently ruined. It looks, however, as though it has stood intact since it was first built – it’s an amazing restoration job. We came across the Citadel and were greeted by a ticket collector dressed in what I can only guess was national garb. I felt sorry for her, as by now the weather had cleared up and it was beautiful and hot while she was wearing clothes more suited to chilly weather. Again, we were almost the only people there. We wandered around and enjoyed the views.

Budva overlooks the sea and you can almost imagine it back in the day, with soldiers patrolling the fortress and cutthroats lurking around the corner. It is slightly Pirates of the Caribbean. It is an ideal place to mooch, although I ‘m not so sure about the shopping. Everyone seems to sell the same, overpriced, items. Perhaps the rich, on leaving their boats, need to buy hugely expensive sunglasses or deck shoes, but for the mere mortal there was nothing much to buy. Although the delightful shell ornaments – welcome to Montenegro – were very tempting. But no, we did not succumb. We saw a hole in the town wall and decided to see what was beyond. It was a small bar on the beach, so we had a drink while watching the world go by. As it didn’t do food and it was getting near lunch time we decided to move on.

We found a place with decent looking food and beautiful people (Budva likes its beautiful people) and waited for a waiter. We waited, we did the seat shifting thing where you crick your neck as you nonchalantly look over your shoulder. Still no waiter. We deliberated leaving, and then, the waiter turned up. Apparently the things that we wanted on the menu were not available, would we like something else? No. So, we left the restaurant – feeling pretty peckish- and looked for somewhere else to eat. There are quite a lot of places in Budva, but you know what its like, you’ve got to fancy the look of a place. We went back to the boats and found a place that overlooked the harbour. More boats were being cleaned and polished. Again, we weren’t jealous. Despite the menu being in Montenegrin and the waiter not speaking English, we managed to order some food (pointing at another diners plate worked for me) and had a lovely meal.

Feeling content and a little sleepy we bid farewell to Budva and continued our journey to Kotor. We planned to stay two days in Kotor as the guidebook and online searches had said it was ‘the’ place to visit. Apart from being ‘the’ place to visit, ‘the’ thing to do was to climb up along the old fortifications which apparently rise 1200m above the town – we added it to our list of things to do.

Again, it was an easy journey. Our guesthouse was just outside the town. There was no way I was going to negotiate a car in Kotor (turns out the town is pedestrian only so if I had tried to drive in I would have been in real trouble) or leave the car in some random car park, so the guest house we chose had parking. It really was only just outside the town. A five minute walk, if that. The room, had the now ubiquitous balcony and to our surprise was actually a self contained apartment. It had a double bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette lounge area. The view was over a waterway (not the moat) and a school basketball court. It was the least impressive view – by day – however, by night, when the lights of the fortifications were turned on, it made up for the day time view. The night time lights wound up the mountain. Bizarrely, one of the nights we were there they kept being turned on and off. It was like a disco up on the mountainside, enhanced by the torches of the people who were up there playing with the lights.

The owner of the guesthouse parked the car for me – right on the edge of the water. I wasn’t looking forward to driving away from that, but that was another day. We dumped our bags and went exploring. Kotor is like a mini Dubrovnik, which doesn’t help to describe it if you haven’t been to Dubrovnik. It’s another walled town, yes with the red tiled roofs, yes with the dusty squares, but… it is very pretty, very walkable and very likeable. It was busy too. Not horrible busy, but buzzy busy. It was nice to be surrounded by action after being in places which were obviously out of season. Another reason for it being busy is that it is a destination for cruise ships which dock for the day and disgorge their passengers for a few hours. We saw a tall ship when we were there. It was huge, although smaller than most cruise ships. It glided in silently overnight and then silently left in the afternoon like a ghost ship.

We found a bar which was up on a terrace on the walls and had a deserved cold beer. Thus fortified we carried on exploring. We wandered around, knowing that we would be back again tomorrow. The most important thing for us was to suss out dinner for the evening. We found somewhere that looked promising – and that we hoped we could find again – and headed off in another direction. We were in fact being quite erractic about our wanders at this time, as at the aforementioned bar, we managed to pick up a stray dog. I have no idea why it stuck itself to us, we didn’t encourage it (even though it was cute), but it stayed with us as we walked about town. Finally we managed to lose it by running around corners when it wasn’t looking and then heading into a shop (yes, we bought more ‘snacks’). After that we headed back to our guesthouse for a pre-dinner rest on the balcony.

Feeling refreshed after our little rest we got ready and headed back into town. We found a nice looking bar in a square and had a drink. The bar would have been fine if a man with a guitar hadn’t started to sing. Now I’m not a singer, but at least I know that and don’t inflict my voice on others. Ah well, we had had a drink and we moved on to the restaurant. With our doggie friend. Yes, the dog had found us by the bar and proceeded to keep us company throughout the evening. It kept the cats at bay anyway.

We ate outside, the tables of the restaurant hugging the walls of the street. It was good food and we had a pleasant evening. With the dog and the cats. We tried to give the dog the slip on the way home. We failed. The dog followed us all the way to our guesthouse. We were worried that it would follow us to our room, but thankfully it didn’t, it decided to give up just as we were climbing the outside stairs to our room.

Stayed at: Apartments Tianis

Ate at: Can’t remember name – it was on the marina side next to the town walls. Two restaurants along from a Chinese restaurant. Outside seating. (Budva), can’t remember the name of where we had dinner either – useless – it had tables arranged along the street wall.

Drank at: Stari Grad Beach (Budva),Citadella (Kotor)

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