Advertisement
Published: June 13th 2009
Kotor Fjord
Taken from about halfway up the mountain.Before sending away my passport to the UK Home Office for six weeks, I decided to take one last holiday for some fun in the hot sun along the Adriatic coast. I only organised the whole trip about two weeks before leaving and so my first holiday since Krakow came a lot sooner than expected.
It also gave me the chance to visit the second newest country in the world - Montenegro. Having gained independence from Serbia in June 2006, Montenegro only relinquished it's title as the world's newest country in February 2008 to it's Balkan neighbours Kosovo, who also gained independence from Serbia.
Therefore I was intrigued to see what I would discover and experience in this new land.
Montenegro also marked my personal three-o - the 30th country I have visited. Now, only 165 more to go... ;-)
Thankfully there was no repeat of the missed-flight-fiasco of
my last trip although it could have been so much different had I not realised in my sleepy stupor that I was on the wrong train platform at West Hampstead en route to Gatwick Airport. Otherwise it was pretty plain sailing with no waiting time all the way to the main bus station
Cathedral of St. Tryphon
Inside Kotor's old town. in Dubrovnik. As I got off the bus, the familiar scramble of locals all offering me accommodation brought back memories of
the last time I was in Croatia. Wading through the swathes of
sobe hawkers, I once again met up with my travel pal Davies, who had already been in Dubrovnik for three days.
There are pretty limited flights going straight into Montenegro so the best way to get there was to fly to Dubrvonik and then take a bus from there. Realising that we would have to wait four hours for the next direct bus to Budva, we decided to get on the next bus to the border town of Herceg Novi, where there are more frequent services to Budva.
After a 45-minute wait at the Croatian/Montenegrin border where two Singaporean dudes were searched to the days, we arrived in Herceg Novi from where we almost immediately caught a bus to Budva.
The bus ride from Herceg Novi to Budva was possibly the most picturesque I have been on.
The route involved going around the entire perimeter of the Kotor Fjord, the largest fjord in Southern Europe. With the mountains meeting the still water, we could very well have been in the South Island of
Our Lady Of The Rock
Our Lady Of The Rock is the man-made island on the left, with the town of Perast in the foreground. New Zealand, if it wasn't for the ancient towns we were passing through along the way. One such town was Perast, where there is an ancient man-made island called Our Lady Of The Rock. Every July 22nd, locals have been sailing out to this island to deposit rocks and to sink ships for the last 550 years, on which a church is built. A certain movie about rings came to mind. To reinforce the theme, Perast is located at the foot of St. Elijah Hill. ;-)
We got talking to the Singaporean guys who were also on this bus and about their tour through Europe. It really reminded me about my own European tour almost two years ago (yikes!) and how I would love to do it again - meeting new people, seeing new places, and the only thing you had to worry about was what to eat and where to go. I think my feet may be starting to itch a little...
Budva is pretty much a tourist hub for all the hotels and resorts that line the beaches of this part of the Adriatic coast, so there isn't too much to see. Walking from the bus station
Paradise?
It felt like it at the time. to the hostel, it was clear to see that Budva is very much a work-in-progress and a developing town as the large number of building sites attested to. The look, feel and smell of the place very much reminded me of Malaysia without the stifling humidity.
Our hostel, Hippo Hostel, is the only hostel in Budva and is pretty much an old house. The lady that greeted us was very helpful indeed as she showed us up to our room and then proceeded to give us a rundown of what to do and see in Budva.
We then went for a walk towards the beach looking for dinner. The thing that really stuck out in our mind was the number of "casinos" there were, dotted all over town. Little pokie parlours full of slot machines. Judging by the housing that most of the folk here live in, it once again saddened me that so many of these casinos are tempting the locals to throw away what little money they may have on such hopeless pursuits. It reminded me very much of what I had seen in
Tallinn. There was a comical window poster on one of the casinos showing a
Budva Riviera
Beach in Budva looking around the bay towards the old town. group of people looking very excited at a craps table - and of course they depict the Asian woman in the group tucking into a huge plate of chicken drumsticks. Classy racial stereotype.
Daniel Craig's first Bond movie Casino Royale was filmed in Montenegro - so I don't know if that had a knock-on effect in terms of the popularity of casinos, but in terms of a Bond theme, this was to continue throughout out stay in Montenegro as you will read in the following paragraphs.
There is also what looks like Russian signage everywhere which I later realised is actually Serbian written with a Cyrillic alphabet. Interestingly, despite it's independence from Serbia, the national language of Montenegro is Serbian.
Anyway, we settled on a restaurant outside on the beach front where we had a nice "shopska" salad of tomato, cucumber and grated goat's cheese, and a pork steak with ham and cheese inside. Mmmmm....
Anyway, it had been a long day of several journeys on various trains, shuttles, planes and buses so an early night was had.
I slept reasonably well, apart from someone seeming to have an all-night shower. Which I discovered the next morning was actually
Stari Grad
Budva's old town. the sound of heavy rain. Bugger.
So with our hot Mediterranean beach day ruined, we thought we might as well head over to Budva's old town to ch-check it out.
The old town was in fact destroyed by two earthquakes in 1979 and has been completely rebuilt. It is a really cute old town and it is full of small boutique shops, restaurants and cafes. It is much smaller than Dubrovnik, but having been recently rebuilt, it seemed a bit too neat and tidy to feel real. This is not to say that it isn't charming and pretty however, which it undoubtedly is. Plus there are no shortages of places to buy shoes in there should you need a pair.
After declining to pay money to see the town's citadel, it was still raining so we instead spent our money on coffee in courtyard cafe under some umbrellas. When the rain finally subsided we decided to walk over to Mogren Beach next to the old town. We then went for a bit of a meaningless hike up the hills where we passed a police officer every 30 metres along the way. Trucks were made to pull over by the cops
as several police cars and what looked like an official escort convoy whizzed down the hill and into town. Perhaps Bond is back in town.
We then walked all the way to the other side of town and into the next bay over where we chilled out on a free deck chair on Becici Beach as the sun finally decided to come out as we rested our tired legs. The wind was still a bit chilly so we didn't swim, but it was relaxing nonetheless.
For dinner we went to the Parma Grill which was recommended by the lady at the hostel. It was full of locals, and the English menu was limited, so we knew we had come to a good place.
I ordered an "ajvar" salad as I believed at the time I had had it before. What came out was red, spicy chutney-like relish in a bowl. I then remembered that it was the delicious condiment that went with my
cevapi when I was in
Zagreb. Couldn't quite eat it as a "salad" though.
After our salads and free bread with various cured meats and spreads, came the main course - the "house specialty". It was special
Streets of Old Town Budva #1
The old town was rebuilt after being levelled by an earthquake in 1979. alright - a huge plate for two that contained about 12 cuts of meat ranging from grilled ham, pork, chicken, pork stuffed with ham and cheese, chicken stuffed with ham and cheese, bacon and sausages. With fries. We couldn't finish it between the two of us. Then to my astonishment the waiter then brought us out a free dessert slice. Too much. All this for just under 20€, which included my 1.20€ pint of Nikšićko, the local lager. Fair to say that we were well fed that night and that it was value for money.
To our great relief, the sun came out the next day and it was straight to the beach and a free deckchair complete with umbrella and table - awesome. The
burek I picked up from the bakery along the way was awesome too. Ahh, I miss Balkan cuisine.
So for a couple of hours we absorbed some much needed rays. The water was beautiful, although I didn't really appreciate the stony beach.
While lying in the sun, again I couldn't help but feel the place was a bit Bond-esque. Police shut down a whole road for some VIP to take off in a helicopter
Looking Towards The Mountains
This rather art-deco/nouvelle-looking shot looks rather old-school Bond. Taken from just outside the old town walls. along the way to the beach and lying on a deck-chair on the riviera full of old buildings from the 60s, with a foreign language being spoken around me and with a setting of mountains meeting the sea, it did feel like I was in an old school James Bond movie.
After a gyros and a beer we decided to finally give in to temptation and part with 50€ to go jet-skiing for 30 minutes. I had never done it before and I was excited and slightly nervous beforehand, but once I got going it was frickin' exhilarating. Those things go frickin' fast and I think my top speed was 85km/h. Flying across the water with the wind in my hair, it was brilliant.
From Budva we went out to the nearby island of Sveti Nikola which was actually a lot further away than it looked and went around the back of it. The sea was really choppy out there and I was doing some serious hang time as I went flying through the air off the waves. At 85km/h. Landing with a huge jolt every time, the jet ski was unsurprisingly difficult to control at times and staying on
the thing was a challenge too. We went around to the next bay for about 5km and past Becici Beach to
Sveti Stefan, an old fisherman's village on a small rock island that is connected to the mainland via a tiny, narrow isthmus. It isn't a village anymore and is now a hotel resort, but it still looks pretty spectacular. I wish I had my camera with me at the time to take some of my own shots of it but I couldn't risk getting my non-waterproof camera wet. About halfway back to Budva, my jet ski started to beep - a bomb perhaps, or a Bond-gadget designed by Q? Thankfully I had enough fuel to get back and once we had got back, it would have been cool to get some photos of us on the jet skis but the dude was charging us 10€ for the shots he took of us, so we passed.
After the exhilaration of the jet skiing it was time to catch our bus to Kotor, where we were staying that night. Set against the mountains by the water of the Kotor Fjord, the setting of this town is dramatic.
Pulling into the bus
station, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the guesthouse we had booked was a mere 100m from the station. Following the instructions from the internet, we came to house with a barking dog in front of it. Thankfully it was chained up as we nervously walked past it, growling at us. We rang the doorbell and was greeted by a delightful old lady who greeted us like long-lost sons, and we got grandma's pinch on the cheek for our trouble. I think Davies didn't appreciate it that much as he at the time had the best Dr. Zoidberg impression I had ever seen after lying in the sun all day ;-)
The old lady didn't speak a word of English and it totally reminded me of
Mrs Pucic in Pula. Her house was like two houses in one and we had our own annex that was completely separate to her house. We required a bit of sign language to sort some things out but we got there in the end. English is so widely spoken in Europe these days that I found the whole experience rather refreshing and felt for a minute that I was really "travelling" again.
Like Budva, Kotor has
Old Town Kotor
Still lived in by most of the locals unlike Budva's old town. it's own old town, except that it is much bigger and older and most of the population still live inside the walls. I have always thought it would be cool to live in an old walled town. I loved walking around the completely pedestrianised streets and the silent, ghostly alleys absent of people. While not as clean as Dubrovnik, (there are stray cats everywhere just like Dubrovnik) Kotor certainly reminded me of it. It was still beautiful in it's own right and haunting at night.
We arrived in town fairly late and ended up at an old stone-housed seafood restaurant where I had a traditional Balkan starter of local goats cheese in olive oil followed by a grilled sea bass. Mmmm...
We were pretty knackered after dinner - the jet-skiing does take quite a bit out of you - and so that was the end of a quite brilliant day.
We got off to a late start the next day and the old lady was laughing at us. She kindly let us keep our bags in the room while we set off to do the last thing we needed to in Montenegro - to climb up to old fortress
Nearly There...
But not really. At least we can see the top. and fortifications some 280m above the old town on Mt. St. John.
The weather was nice and hot for our ascent and we began the hike from the within the old town walls after another bakery breakfast that for me included a local cherry strudel. Yum. On a funny note the guy issuing tickets for the climb recognised my Chuck Norris t-shirt with the letters "W.W.C.N.D?". Awesome.
The climb was pretty tough, especially in the early afternoon sun and several breaks were taken. Lucky we weren't building these fortifications I suppose. An advantage of taking all these breaks was to allow us to take photographs of a sweeping view from up the mountain down over the old town and across the fjord.
Seeing how far we still had to go at each of our stops didn't exactly inspire us, but we got there in the end. Waiting for us at the top was the ruins of the old Castle of St. John. It was tough work - my legs were shaking at the end of it and my knees were sore.
After resting and admiring the stunning view for a while it was back down the hill and to the
View From The Top
Looking out towards the Kotor Fjord. bus station to catch our bus back to Dubrovnik, where I would be staying the weekend.
For a relaxing European beach holiday, Montenegro is pretty good value for money with just enough to see and do to keep it interesting. Due the lack of direct flights it probably isn't seeing the tourist numbers you would expect, but the lack of tourists was refreshing, unlike Dubrovnik. However, Montenegro is still emerging and developing as a tourist destination and with it's natural scenery, perhaps in time we will start to see more people start to come here.
I won't write about Dubrovnik because
I have been there before.
And that brings to an end my 40th travel blog. I didn't think that it would ever get this far.
With my UK visa coming up for renewal, I won't be travelling for a while and there are no concrete plans before an early September trip to Gothenburg, Sweden. But who knows, something might come up before then. But until then...
Dovidjenja!
Derek
Advertisement
Tot: 0.373s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 50; qc: 149; dbt: 0.1929s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.9mb
