Montenegro

God only knows why we chose to do a bus journey down to Montenegro. There were trains that would take us four fifths of the way, I guess we figured it would be easier to get on a mode of transport and stay on that mode of transport until the end. Anyhow the bus it was, we booked it to take us from Belgrade down to Kotor. Shortly afterwards we found out that there really wasn't much in the way of accommodation in Kotor and a neighbouring town (Budva, not the beer place) seemed to be more accessible and a bit livelier. Luckily our bus took us past that destination on route to Kotor so we decided we would hop of there.

Apart from not being able to sleep at all in the upright position and constantly getting pins and needles the bus journey turned out to be awesome. Leaving Serbia we expected a delay going through passport control, however it appears on this particular day they forgot that Serbia and Montenegro were now separate countries and the only presence of passport control that we saw was a chap who boarded the coach at one of the rest stops, stood at the front and simply cast his torch over the bus once, the same went for the Montenegro side of the border too. Anyway back to this spectacular journey.

Ask anyone that has known me whilst I have grown up, particularly my parents, and they will confirm that I am the worst traveller on the roads and my travel sickness has always been the signal that showed the commencement of a good family British holiday. Which is maybe why I found this journey so amazing, I mean after all I spent the majority of the scenic trips we took (Lake district, Dartmoor etc) with my head firmly in a plastic bag. Once we crossed the border the whole journey seemed to become mountain roads all beautifully lit up by nothing but the moon. We were winding in an out of tunnels simply carved through the mountains (no lighting) and along roads which on one side had mountains and the other a deep deep gorge for what seem like for ever. After travelling through Podgorica, which is the capital but also possibly the only eyesore in Montenegro, the journey and scenery seemed to get even better but I think this was more to do with the sunrise catching the gorges and the mountains in all the right places. Sadly I don't hold anything close to the vocabulary that I would need to do the journey justice, but trust me it was amazing, by far the most beautiful I have ever been on.

We hopped off the bus at Budva bus station, the bus driver helpfully tried to get us back on the bus stating "No, Kotor...Budva", eventually though we managed to communicate that we were aware of this and had had a change of plans. Getting out of the station we were harassed by dozens of women offering accommodation. However we declined as we had already secured a hostel for the night. We both delighted to find that Montenegro used the Euro and that we had some change left in our bags from a previous Euro friendly country, as this meant the usually crossed legged dance to the ATM was not needed before we could use the loo.

The hostel we were staying at was the Hippo Hostel and we decided to walk rather than get a taxi to the hostel which was just over a mile away. After 25 minutes we were at the hostel, things were just going too smoothly for us (a) we managed to book a hostel (b) we had money for the toilets (c) we found the hostel without getting lost once. We arrived at the hostel and the host let us know that all was fine but the room would not be ready until about midday. It was by then about 9 am, so we ditched our bags and went for a wander, found some breakfast and then found the gorgeous coast line with awesome beaches. We carried on wondering for some time heading towards the old town which is housed, wait for it....in a Citadel (woo hoo, we like these). The old town was about a 25 minute walk away but we managed to reach it just as the heavens opened and not just a little bit, this was a proper cloud burst.

At about 12:30 we got back to the hostel looking like a pair of drowned rats, the host looked at us apologetically, we just shrugged and advised her it was probably our fault as the weather has been crap everywhere we had been really. Her next words seemed all to familiar "there is a bit of a problem with the room we HAD for you". It seemed things had returned to normality, the host informed us that unfortunately the room we were due to stay in floods due to a leaky roof and the weather reports suggested that the next 36 hours was going to see the most rain fall of Montenegro for a good few months. Me and Nina were so used to this though and resisted hitting the panic button. The host then advised us she had managed to secure us a room across the road. 15 minutes later we were in a 3 star en suite hotel room with a balcony and T.V. We decided we liked there being problems with our hostels, the alternatives and the solutions are always so great!

After showering (how ironic) we took a long nap until the evening when we headed to a local family owned fish restaurant. Leaving our room we were delighted to see that the rain had stopped and although now night time the temperature had warmed up. We got through most of our meal before the rain started once again. We managed to make our drinks and dessert last just long enough for the rain to calm down a bit. We left just as the chef finished mopping up the water which had come through the kitchen ceiling (seems roofing is a problem here).

The following morning the weather seemed quite a lot better but still not beach weather so we went for another walk to the old town. This time we felt we could enjoy it a bit more as we did not need to worry about draining, en route we booked an excursion for the following day which would take us right up to the national park. The old town was much more residential than some of the other citadels that we had visited, but there were enough shops, restaurants and sites to make it tourist friendly. It was nice because it was big enough to be interesting but small enough to keep away the masses of tour groups that swamped Dubrovnik. We took a walk around the city walls and also the town walls which were cunningly presented as two separate attractions meaning that they could charge twice. Still the charge was minimal and the views were gorgeous so we didn't mind. That evening we headed back to the same family run fish restaurant and shared an awesome fish platter between us. I thought it was delicious but due to Nina's disliking of squid and there being about 12 of them on the platter I can safely say I have had my fill of them for this year and many more. We headed home relatively early as we had a 5:30 am start the following day for the excursion.

The alarm woke us and astonishingly there was no rain. However shortly after leaving Budva that all changed, this made for an awesome day out, which I will write about in a separate post, it was really that great...

The following morning we were due to leave having already extended our originally planned stay of two nights. However we woke up in no mood to travel and when we opened the doors to be hit by glorious sunshine and heat our minds were made up, if the hostel would have us we were staying. Nina went to investigate and was given the all clear, 30 minutes later we on the beach chilling out and soaking up the rays. This was what Nina had been desperate for since the disappointingly (and painfully) craggy coast of Dubrovnik. This is what Varna had failed to provide us. It was really great to have such a lazy day and that evening we wrapped it up nicely by cooking in the hostel, (they were going to have a barbecue but had to spend the day hunting a rat which had managed to gain entry) and munching our food whilst watching Family Guy DVDs and Sin City (can someone explain that film to me please).

As much as we had loved Montenegro the following day it was time to move on. The hostel phoned us a taxi and we got to the bus station in time to catch a bus to Dubrovnik. No we weren't going to stay there but that was the only way we could get to Split. It was time to give Croatia a second chance.

TTFN

Daz

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