Montenegro

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Montenegro is a beautiful many-mountained country with a gorgeous coast-line. If like me you hadn't heard of this country prior to Casino Royal, thats because it's only been an independent country since 2006 and was the newest country in the world prior to Kosovo declaring independence in 2008. I was based at the Hippo Hostel in Budva for the week, about half way up the coast where it's easy to travel to everywhere else in the country within a few hours: Ulcinj near the Albanian border is 2 hours away; Sveti Stefan was a 2hour walk and then a 15min bus ride back; Kotor is 30 minutes on the bus. Kotor Bay is the 2nd biggest fjord in the world with some stunning views especially after a walk up the 1000+ steps of the old city wall at Kotor town. I went there on Thursday after stopping off at the little town of Perast, also on the bay, which has two little islands, each just big enough to hold a church. I got a boat across to one of them and there were some other people there including a group of Koreans holding hands in a circle and singing. 'They must be Christians', I thought. And sure enough, post-song they went into a little huddle with 'Amen!' being shouted out at intervals. They then went into a little secret chapel at the back of the church and had a service in Korean which I sat in for a bit of. Had a nice surprise back at the hostel when Inge, one of my friends from the Cairo to Istanbul trip, turned up! So nice to see a familiar face and we'd both been missing everyone after 2 weeks travelling on our own. On Friday Marcus and Marta from the hostel took us inland and up into the mountains to Lovcen National Park and Cetinje (the medieval capital). Cetinje felt a whole world away from the coast with chalets on the way and Austrian-esque houses in the city. Budva is small and quite touristy with lots of hotels and beach-side bars, but a short walk or bus ride up or down the coast and you can find empty beaches. On Friday night I spontaneously decided to get the night bus to Sarajevo with Inge instead of going to Dubrovnik first as originally planned.

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Comments

[Rich]

Good Choice in missing Dubrovnick
Miss T, you made the right choice, Montenegro is great I spent about 4 days there last year, wish I had longer, however, you don;t need to go to Dubrovnick, it's just another walled city and worse for tourists than Budvar. Stick to Bosnia and see more places there. My American who I travelled with last year enjoyed seeing the war memorials and the battle fields more than most of her trip, yes I did say "HER".

[SusannahTravels]

Agreed - the rest of Croatia is MUCH nicer than Dubrovnik! Bosnia was also great, loved it lots :)