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Published: July 30th 2009
So, after our weekend in Dubrovnik, we got our hire car and headed for the Montenegro border. The border crossing was easy enough, although the sun pounding down did make the car turn into a bit of a sauna! Some 40 minutes saw us leave Croatia and enter Montenegro. I am guessing that most people don't know too much about Montenegro (the second newest country in the world), and I am happy to admit that until a few weeks ago I was one of those people. However, Barry saw an article in 'Wanderlust' magazine talking about how lovely Montenegro was and how nice the mountains were and our minds were quickly made up to head there for my birthday break.
Bay of Kotor The Bay of Kotor is Europe's southern most fjord, and a pretty awsome one at that. The road from the border snakes all around the shoreline, offering lovely views and making you want to jump out of the car and into the sea!
Along the way, we stopped off at the village of Perast. This is one of those postcard-picture type of places, with lots of Venetian style houses and churches next to the water.
We climbed the bell tower of one of the churches to get good views out to the bay.
We then hopped into a taxi boat to take us over to a small island in the bay called "Our Lady of the Rock". It is completely manmade, and apparently the site of some miraculous event involving a shipwrecked sailor. We sat out underneath a small lighthouse on the island to eat our picnic lunch in the sunshine before heading in to look at the church. Our very entertaining guide told us the history and explained that many locals (and even some from much further afield) come here to pray to the Virgin for all kinds of help. When they get that help, they leave an offering - some of which are available to view in the attached museum.
Then a boat back to Perast, where all the strain meant we had to sit down at a nice outdoor cafe for a lemonade. Well, travelling is hard work you know... Apparently Michael Douglas has just bought a house here and I can easily understand why. If I could afford it, I would too!
Kotor And so we drove
onwards to the town of Kotor. A quick chat with a local agency got us a nice room in a local house, just a 10 minute walk from the Old Town. Kotor's Old Town is a lovely place to wander. It is probably not in as pristine condition as Dubrovnik up the coast but it still has plenty of charm, as well as lots of nice cafes! I love these old towns, with their history, colour and lack of traffic.
We decided it was time for some exercise, so hiked up the well-worn path to a ruined fort behind the town. It was tough going in the heat but worth it for the lovely views. After all that effort, it was clear that we deserved some rewards(!) so we went to a lovely restaurant "Citadella", on the town walls and with apparently the largest terrace in Montenegro. Sundown was accompanied by perfect wood-fired pizza and beers.
Lovcen National Park Up early the next day to hit the road and head to Lovcen National Park. This was not our usual national park visit, as we drove most of the way up a mountain before parking the car and
hiking the last few hundred metres. Shame on us! Still, it was fun and the views from the top of Mt Lovcen were stunning, though hazy in the heat. At the summit is the mausoleum of Peter Petrovic-Njegos, a famous Montenegrin poet, bishop and prince.
Njegusi After Lovcen we drove down into the town of Njegusi. This place is famous for its ham and cheese, which we bought to take away. We always seem to end up eating ham and cheese sandwiches on holiday and it looked like Montenegro was going to be no exception! The town had some friendly locals including the nice lady in the local shop who taught us how to say tomato in Serbian (it sounds like "paradise") and we enoyed a relaxed espresso before hopping back into the car.
Barry thought he had worked out a quick way for us to get to the town of Zabljak in the mountains of northern Montenegro via some back roads. Well, the roads certainly turned out to give us an interesting experience! We drove for a long time, rarely seeing another car nevermind another human being. For quite some time we were unsure whether or
not we were on the right road but decided to keep going. We eventually saw a sign suggesting we were going the right way and so we were able to relax a bit. Probably the most frustrating thing about driving in Montenegro is the lack of distances on road signs. An arrow points left and says "Zabljak", but you have no idea how far it is! This meant that turning every corner was like a surprise. Not always a pleasant surprise.
At some point during the drive we got so hungry that we pulled over to a clearing at the side of the road for lunch. We made up some massive Njegusi ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches. Delicious!
Zabljak We finally arrived in Zabljak in the late afternoon. After trying a couple of places, we decided to stay at the very nice Hotel Javor. It only has a few rooms, is very reasonably priced and the breakfast turned out to be excellent. We ended up staying there for four nights in total as we spent the next few days exploring the Durmitor National Park. The town of Zabljak itself was pleasant and easily fulfilled our needs, with
a supermarket, ATM, and a few good cafes and bars. Some highlights included the pizzeria (signposted from the main road between the bus station and main square); the bar with lots of outside seats just down from the main square with very cheap beers; the Restaurant Durmitor with excellent steaks; and the restaurant in our own Hotel Javor which served massive amounts of local lamb with roast potatoes. Yum yum!
Durmitor National Park So the next few days saw us donning our hiking boots and setting off for the wilds:
* Day 1: took us to the summit of Bobotov Kuk. This is the highest mountain in the national park (altitude 2,523m) and many like to claim it is the hightst in Montenegro, although there are actually a couple on the border with Albania which are a few metres higher. We started off early in the morning, driving to a car park near the trailhead, close to the Black Lake. The hike was long and pretty strenuous, firstly heading up through pine forest before emerging onto more open land. The views all along were stunning and when we got our first views of Bobotov Kuk it was
breathtaking (and also looked very high!). For the last hour or so heading up to the final pass we actually had to cross some areas of snow, which was pretty surprising given the 30 degree heat and bright sunshine overhead. The final push involved a narrow ledge and some scrambling before we finally reached the summit, exhausted but happy.
We stayed at the top for a while, taking pictures and enjoying the views before heading down to the pass to eat our lunch. From there it was a long trek back home. This was made harder by the diversion Barry put in to climb up to a cave which contains stalactites and stalagmites. The significant effort was not well rewarded though as the entrance to the cave was blocked by snow and ice! All in all, the trek was long (nearly 11 hours round trip) but certainly worth the sore limbs.
* Day 2: We headed off in the car to a spot a few kilometres outside of Zabljak which is the main place to be in winter for the ski season. Despite it not being winter, the ski chairlift is still in operation so we hopped on
that to take us up a significant stretch of the mountain. The lift was creaking a bit, but still good fun. When we could go no further by chairlift we started hiking. It was quite tough going uphill as we were going over rocks and scree. The temperatures were also soaring yet again which definitely slowed my progress! However, a while later we finally made it to the summit of Mt Savin Kuk. There were lovely views from the top and after a good rest I was ready for the descent.
We drove back to Zabljak and took a different direction for the afternoon. We headed out to the Tara Canyon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the largest canyon in Europe at 82km long and 1,300 metres deep in places. We stopped at an impressive bridge spanning the canyon and relaxed with a late picnic lunch. It is possible to go rafting on the river but we didn't have the time (or courage?!) to do that, so just enjoyed the scenery instead. We then went on a lengthy drive out to an area from where the views of the canyon are said to be best, called Curovac. We left
the car and hiked quite a distance to the lookout. Unfortunately the light was almost too strong for views, but it was still a lovely hike and the scale of the canyon was very evident. On the way back to the car we managed to get a bit lost and it became obvious how easy it would be to get confused in this environment. Still, after some sensible reasoning we were able to find our way back to the right path again and back to the car.
On our drive back into Zabljak we saw a backpacking couple who we thought we had seen earlier. They looked exhausted and we stopped to offer them a lift which they greatly received. It made me realise that despite the sometime pain of having a car, it can often help to get to places which are otherwise a significant hike from anywhere. This couple had been hiking for hours and ended up abandoning their trek to the lookout as they were too tired.
For the evening we made our way to the Black Lake (Crno Jezero) in the Durmitor National Park. We walked a 3km circuit around the lake, enjoying the
fact that it wasn't too tough a hike and that we could enjoy beautiful sunset views on the lake and the mountains beyond. This is a stunning place.
* Day 3: I wasn't sure I was up to any more hiking for our final day in the Durmitor National Park, but the description of the hike up to Mount Prutas persuaded me to give it a go. I read that the hike was very easy, on a shallow slope and that anyone of any age could do it. Well.... whilst the trek was not as tough as others I have done it was certainly not too easy either! A few steep climbs, along with some precipitous ledges meant it wasn't a stroll in the park, but at least the hike up only took some 2 and a half hours. It was worth the effort too as we got some spectacular views of the surrounding park and could also see Bobotov Kuk across the valley. Once at the summit, which consists of a large grassy plateau, we sat down and promptly fell asleep! We ended up spending a few hours at the summit, relaxing, eating lunch and snoozing. It is
so rare to be able to do this usually as summits tend to be cold and windy places in our experience. This meant that we cancelled our plans to trek on any further for the day (oops!) and instead only had to do the return hike to the car which we managed in under an hour.
Budva We left Zabljak early the next morning, waved goodbye to the mountains and headed back towards the coast. This time we took better roads than previously and were able to make good time, although it still took most of the morning. We stopped for lunch just outside of the town of Budva at a nice restaurant where we were filled to bursting with tasty veal steaks.
Onwards to Budva, a prime coastal destination in Montenegro. We got a good hotel (The Grbalj), dumped our stuff and headed to the beach. We hired a pedalo with a slide attached (cool!), pedalled out into the Adriatic and promptly set about jumping/sliding/diving into the water for the next hour. Good fun! Barry was looking to do some other watersports after that but I had had enough so instead we had a coffee and
then headed into the Old Town.
Budva's Old Town is similar to the others we had seen on the trip: nice red roofs, winding narrow streets, lots of nice cafes, etc. We climbed up to the City Walls to get better views, popped into a church or two and then settled down for a well-earned glass of wine. As you may be able to tell, the cultural content of this trip was fairly minimal!
Finally it was time to leave the Old Town and head to a restaurant we had spotted by the beach for dinner - the Restaurant Jadran. This was a lovely place to spend our last evening in Montenegro. Barry had been saying that we should go to a fish restaurant as we were on the coast. I was adventurous and ordered a plate of mussels "house style" whilst Barry was a coward and ordered a beef steak! Well, all I can say is that I ate a
lot of mussels. Ugh... At least they were washed down with some nice Montenegrin red wine.
On the way back to the hotel we walked through a funfair and almost without even realising it I found
myself sitting in a bumper car with Barry at the wheel. Having seen what followed I think it is probably best that Barry doesn't have a driving licence as his driving was scary! Those poor local kids didn't know what had hit them....
Sveti Stefan Our final morning saw us up early, packed, and headed off in the car to lovely Sveti Stefan. This is one of those places you always see on the postcards in Montenegro and it easily lives up to its hype. A beautiful stretch of coastline, with a pretty settlement jutting out into the sea. The settlement itself is closed at the moment as it is being turned into a posh hotel, so after a bit of a wander we found ourselves some deckchairs on the beach and relaxed in the sunshine ordering coffees and cokes as we needed them. Paradise!
Kotor again However, we had to move on and so eventually dragged ourselves away from Sveti Stefan and back into the car. We drove back through Budva and on up the coast, eventually reaching Kotor. It was strange to return to somewhere we had been to nearly a week before. It
almost felt like we had never left - especially as we returned to the same restaurant as last time! We only had time to enjoy a quick lunch and a walk around the old town before getting back into the car and moving on.
Back to Croatia and a quick stop in Cavtat We drove around the Bay of Kotor, once again mesmerised by its beauty. Unfortunately I had to keep my eyse on the road, but I still caught the occasional glimpse of clear water and pretty towns.
We reached the border with Croatia and were pretty much waved through. Nobody even bothered to stamp our passports! On the other side we drove a few miles into Croatia and then down to the town of Cavtat. This is another lovely coastal town, in a similar vein to the other places we have seen on this trip - pretty old town, good cafes, lots of people jumping into the sea to cool off. So we spent our final few holiday hours there relaxing and savouring the sunshine.
A 10 minute drive finally took us back to Dubrovnik airport, where we left the car and jumped on
a plane back to drizzly London. The difference between Cavtat at 7:30pm in the sunshine and London at midnight in the rain was truly painful!
So, once again, we arrived home after another amazing trip. This world is just so full of lovely places to see, things to do, food to eat and drink to drink! I wonder where we will go next...?
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Trish
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Hey great to read your blogs again. Sounds like a great place to go. Our last day in work today and then we are off to Georgia on Sunday. We aim to travel through Georgia (with a side trip to Armenia), Turkey and Bulgaria (if we have time) before returning to the UK in Oct for a wedding. Russ will be blogging of course. Take care Trish