A Day Trip to Montenegro

We wanted to stay in Montenegro, but couldn't fit it into the schedule... mostly because of how we choose to travel. We don't like to move too often. It's quite tiring, and really not doable when you are travelling for an extended period of time.

So instead of staying in Montenegro, we opted for visiting on a day trip from Dubrovnik. This was easier to arrange than I imagined. There are all kinds of travel agencies around advertising trips. There happened to be an agency right outside our apartment, and we booked a trip the day before we went. I think it was a bargain for 42 Euros each, for the 11 hour day trip.

They picked us up out on the street in front of our apartment at 7:30 in the morning. We picked up the remaining passengers (there were 8 of us in all, in our van) and headed for the "coffee break" stop. This is where we could buy snacks from the little store, and the driver (Igor) filled out our passport information on the sheet he gave to them at customs.

We were quickly on our way and through the border. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get a Montenegro stamp in our passport, he only stamped the sheet with all the information from the driver. We did however get a leaving Croatia stamp.

Igor was telling us a story about the first time he drove into Montenegro with a group. He got a speeding ticket for going 53 in the 50 km/h zone! Then low and behold there were the police right around the corner giving out tickets. Not to us though! Igor says he drives very carefully in Montenegro now. If you are driving there I recommend you do the same, we saw several speed traps as we were driving in Montenegro.

The landscape was quite beautiful in Montenegro. It seems like it is fronted with seaside on one side of the road and tall mountains on the other side. When we got close to Kotor Bay we took a short ferry ride to knock some driving time off the trip. Igor told us we would circle the bay when we drove home.

There were four of these little ferries doing the short (maybe 15 minutes?) trip back and forth across the bay. I had to laugh when we were loading. They are a little more "freeform" with their loading techniques including a bunch of lanes just driving in a haphazard manner while the guys directing traffic stood in the middle of the lanes. It seems the people here know how it works, and we all got on the ferry with nobody running over the ferry workers 😀

You could get out of the car and enjoy the view while the ferry crossed the bay.

The next place we stopped was at a viewpoint to see the island of Sveti Stefan. This is the place you always see on Pinterest when you look up Montenegro. You are not, however, allowed down there. It is a private island only for the super rich... A.K.A. Madonna, Sylvester Stallone, etc.

We were however allowed to look at it from above.

I'm not that interested in places I'm not allowed to go into (go figure?!), so after taking a picture, I was happy to be on our way.

Our first stop was the town of Budva. Budva is basically a resort town on the Adriatic coast. It has an approximate population of 14,000 people and is one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic Coast (2500 years old!). Igor told us how most of the tourists are from Russia, and a lot of the holiday properties are Russian owned in Budva. I was quite surprised to see that it didn't look how I imagined, but rather like a string of hotels and resorts.

Apparently Casino Royale was filmed here at the "Hotel Splendid". I'm not sure why I imagined it as a more traditional old looking European town... but it definitely wasn't. Well with the exception of the small old town... but honestly that was a VERY small part of it!

The first thing we did was stop for lunch at the restaurant recommended by Igor.

We immediately ordered some water... it is so HOT out... and some "fried olives". I was wondering if they were going to be deep-fried, but they ended up just being hot. Imagine how olives taste in pasta... quite yummy!

It was quite tasty, and I had some sort of traditional dish called something like "muchaliska". It was a meat dish covered in a red spicy tomato/pepper sauce cooked in a clay dish. I can not find anything about it online, which leads me to believe I have the name wrong 😉

I just noticed I don't even have my food yet in this photo, so I guess whatever it was is really lost to me now! Let's just say it was delicious.

After lunch we decided to walk through the old town.

There is a little island just off Budva that they call "Hawaii". Apparently because someone told them it is like Hawaii. Having been to the actual Hawaii I would have to disagree 😀 You could however go to Hawaii and back for 3 Euros. You can't get that kind of deal in the real Hawaii!

The old town of Budva has stone walls circling it, and of course gates to enter the town. This is where we entered.

Although the town is quite old it has been destroyed many times over the years and rebuilt. The most recent destruction happened during an earthquake in 1979. I could see no evidence of this damage, they've done a nice job of rebuilding.

It is a beautiful town, with stone buildings, little alleyways, and WAY more than its fair share of jewelry shops. We managed to make it out without buying anything! Interestingly, the Euro is their official currency in Montenegro, and they have been using it for 15 years, even though they are not part of the EU. Neither guide we talked to today seemed to know why 🤷

After you walk through the old town you come to another gate on the sea side.

If we had a bit more time we would have gone for a swim. The water looked very inviting!

Alas, we had to head back to the van, so no swim for us.

Our next stop was the old town of Kotor. We met up with a local guide who toured us through the town and told us lots of interesting facts (which you know I promptly forgot!).

Kotor has an amazing fortification wall that I can't really seem to capture in photos. Here are a couple of attempts to show you the scope of it.

The walls are 4.5 km long and go WAY up the hill. You could walk to the top... but it was just too hot... and we didn't have enough time anyway (Phew!).

Montenegro has a long history and was first mentioned in 168 B.C. It was continually raided and conquered and didn't become its own country until fairly recently when it gained its independence from the former Yugoslavia in 2006.

Kotor is a UNESCO world heritage site and has a fairly well preserved medieval old town. You can enter the city through the main city gate. It has a date inscribed for 1944 which was when they were liberated in WWII.

When you enter the gate there is a little space where you can put your hand in to make a wish. The guide told us if you are a good person your wish would come true, but if you weren't the lion inside would bite off your hand. Luckily, we both ended up with our fingers intact!

Side note: The little boy on our tour who was about six years old, was VERY nervous about putting his hand in there. Steve heard him ask his mom, "If you've been bad it really doesn't chop your hand off, does it?"  I wonder what he has been up to? 😀

Kotor old town was quite beautiful, and I much preferred it to the resorty feel of Budva. If you can only visit one place in Montenegro I would definitely choose Kotor!

Here are some photos from inside the old city:

We went inside a church that dates back to the 1100's! I'm not sure how much is original as there were many destructive conquests of Kotor, and a devastating earthquake in 1979.

The majority of Montenegrins in Kotor are Serbian Orthodox, probably because Montenegrins had close ties with Serbia even after the other countries left Yugoslavia.

The other interesting fact that the guide told us about Kotor was that people here love cats. He claims it was because during "The Plague" rats were the ones passing the plague around... but it was the cats that ate the rats and saved the people from the plague. Interesting legend 😀 The cats here are clearly well loved because they are in much better shape than the cats we saw in Greece! They are plump with nice shiny fur here.

After touring the town we had to seek out some shade and a drink. There were plenty of places to choose from, but we chose this one because they had live music.

Next we headed to our final stop which was a visit to "Our Lady of the Rocks". This is an island off the coast of Perast in the Bay of Kotor. Igor took us down to a boat that took us out to the island. (That's Igor behind me!)

Perast itself looked quite lovely, but we didn't have time to stop for a look around.

From the boat you can see two islands in the Bay. The one on the left is the Island of St. George, which Igor told us we were not allowed to visit. The second was "Our Lady of the Rocks".

Our Lady of the Rocks is a man made island. Legend has it that a sailor found an icon of the Madonna and Child on the rock in 1452. Every time he returned from a successful voyage he laid a rock in the bay and over time the islet emerged. Each year on the anniversary date of the finding of the icon, local people come and lay rocks on the island, further expanding the surface of the island.

The island has a church and a museum on it. It was quite a beautiful little island and I'm glad we were able to visit it.

After our visit to the islands we headed back home to Dubrovnik. We were both so glad we were able to take this trip and see a new country!