Budva, Montenegro

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After Krakow Shatters, Norman and I headed down to Budva in the newly independent country of Montenegro. Its a relaxing beach getaway for the Serbs kinda like what Margaret River or Yallingup would be for us Perthians. The six of us all arrived within 24 hours of each other at the hostel, our group of three and the rest individually from all over Europe.
Days in Budva all tended to blend together, mainly because we did the same thing each day. Typically we'd casually get up in the morning, saunter down to the beach for a swim to wake up. Then we'd usually go to one of the many cafes on the water edge and have a few lattes while leisurely reading our books. Between us we have upwards of 15 books and have been swapping and all getting quite a lot read. Lunch would usually be at one of the restaurants, for some fresh seafood or a mixed grill at the 'Grill Bastard' which would possibly kill you if you tried to eat the whole thing yourself. If we were feeling a bit lazy or cheap, there was plenty of good street meat such as kebabs and decent hamburgers on the beach's edge. Me and Luke also found a great place by the beach to get a massage. You had two people working on you at the same time which was great (and don't worry, no happy endings).
We did quite a lot of swimming. For one because the water was very refreshing and I think we all miss the beaches at home somewhat. Another reason, however, and perhaps the more important of the two was that our hostel lacked running water. This annoyed us all quite a bit and needless to say it got a little smelly in our small room, filled with six unshowered lads.
There wasn't much to do at night except for eat out and go to the bars, which is exactly what we did. There were a number of cool bars carved out of the cliffs on the beach which looked out onto the water. Some would have a huge inflow of people by water taxi at 1am when the rest of the bars closed and the late night parties would kick off. We spent much of our time in the old town area which was reminiscent of an old castle but filled with shops that were quite modern inside and relatively expensive. Our favourite was a place called Casper which played good tunes and had a very casual and relaxed feel to it.
One of the days, the other boys hired a paddle boat to explore the coastline and paddle out to one of the nearby islands. Meanwhile, Luke and I took a day trip to Albania on a guided bus tour. I'll do this side trip in a seperate blog.
So, all in all i think we were in Budva for around 10 days which was enough. Theres only so much relaxation you can have before people start itching to do something. We initially intended to stay for 2 weeks but cut it short so we could spend some time in Belgrade, which i'll do when i get another chance.

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Photos

The Whole Crew
This was the first time all 6 of us were together at the same time.

On the ferry
The bus crossed the water on the way to Budva from Dubrovnik.

Tom, me and Norman
Standing in front of the main beach. Its a typical european beach, covered in people and deck chairs but not sand, just large pebbbles. Still great to get into the water again

Harbour and old town
The area is really nice, lots of expensive boats and old town is like a castle wall on the ocean and filled with old style shops, bars and restaurants

Eating in style
Despite the impression i may have given you all, we're not just boozing. Here we're enjoying some fresh seafood at our favourtie Budva restaurant, only a few metres from the water. Great mussels and squid

Da Beach
This is one of the better beaches we went to where all the younger crowd go, and theres plenty of gorgeous serbian girls around. You can see the old town in the background

Check out the mountains
This is one of the pedestrian streets with lots of market stalls and street meat. You can see the mountains rise up in the background which is very representative of the coast in the area. Pretty spectacular

The Pez dispenser
I found a Pez dispenser in the shop next to the hostel and spent a whole night offering Pez to everyone i met, was a laugh.

Norm, Tom and the Kebab
One thing about this part of the world is that they make great Kebabs (of Gyros). Except they don't wrap them up but rather dump the contents into an open pita

Me, a cat, and a swede
I wanted to talk to this swedish girl at the bar but there was a cat on the chair opposite her. I ended up putting it on my lap where it stayed for about half an hour. Not a usual occurence at the pubs back home

The Montenigger coast line
As seen from the bus

Tom at our reading cafe
This is the spot we spent most mornings, just reading drinking coffees. It looked out over the main beach and ocean. You can see lots of watersports they had in the background, as well as the bungee tower.

David Brent, oops, i mean Luke
At Casper bar

Fooligans
At Casper bar

Luke, Tom and Steve
They had lots of bars which were made almost entirely out of rock. Very cool feel to them.

Larikins
Steve and Shatters acting up one night

The Celebrity
One night we noticed lots of girls going up to this one guy and getting a photo with him. We learned he was a famous Serbian singer so we had to get a photo too. Just don't ask me what his name is.

My rude hair cut
Late one night decided to get a silly haircut which i think you'll agree i managed. Speed stripes down each side and the mo on top, and more speed stripes lining each side of the mo.

Boys and their beers
One of the many outings to old town Budva at one of our favourite spots- the Casper

Comments

[steve again]

wait'a'go with the pez dispenser, a while ago i was thinkin' of firing up my old one again, you know the one i did the transplant on. trouble is finding the refills here in perth is hard.