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Montenegro
For our journey into Montenegro we took a bus from Dubrovnik ferry port to a town just over the border called Herceg Novi. From there we boarded another bus. This particular vehicle had an interesting interior that resembled a 1970’s pub complete with thick purple curtains (jazzy!). It was popular too as the driver insisted on completely over filling it, mainly with young Belgian backpackers. It was not pleasant. Not just because of the lack of air conditioning but also because “drives” went out of his way to stop and check if every person he passed needed a lift. After a sweaty Belgian filled 2 hours we reached Budva.
The accommodation was great and the staff really friendly. After a quick sort out we walked to the Old Town and managed to hire a car for the Wednesday and Thursday of the week. We hadn’t hired just any car, oh no, we had got ourselves a Fiery red Chevrolet! An All American muscle car! We were very excited as you might imagine!
The rest of Budva was a little surprising and later that night a strip emerged along the harbour that was not dissimilar to Blackpool, complete with fake Eiffel Tower and full of Russian and Ukrainian holiday makers. The Old Town however retains its charm and is very quaint.
The next day we went across by taxi boat to the island of St Nikolas and spent most of the afternoon relaxing on the beach. In the evening we headed back to the Old Town and sampled some Croatian Chinese food. “Hong Kong” was a restaurant that claimed to produce authentic Chinese cuisine and was established in 1981 by Mr Vorasövič! After the nice man brought us a shot of whiskey with our starters to apologise for the mistake he had made with the order we thought something might be going on. Anyway after we received 4 different plates of food (none of which we had asked for) we finally got our order and enjoyed the meal.
Wednesday morning we awoke with the anticipation similar to that of a small child on Christmas day. We waited on tenterhooks as the Dimpex Rent-a-Car man arrived with our Chevy! He did not disappoint! The Chevrolet Spark had all the mod-cons including doors, windows and a steering wheel! In terms of performance the magnificent 795cc, 6 valve engine produces a mind boggling 8KW of power and torque of 68.6 Nm@4600 rpm. Impressive! Furthermore it claims to accelerate from 0-60mph in, wait for it, a staggering 16.4 seconds!
We set off to Lake Skadar just managing to tame the power of the Spark as it reached speeds of up to 35 mph. Lake Skadar was extremely impressive and is the largest lake in the Balkans. We had a drive around then took a 2hr boat trip spotting birds and wildlife, of which a water snake, pygmy cormorants and whiskered terns were probably the highlight. Later we headed back via the stunning mountain roads and returned to Budva.
On Thursday we headed to Kotor and walked around the harbour and Old Town. The place was very busy with lots of tourists that had disembarked from some of the many cruise ships that visit this region on a daily basis. We moved on after lunch to a little town of Perast that boasts an amazing 16 churches. From there we visited Sveti Stefan (Sweaty Stefan) and drove down the windy road to the beach.
Unfortunately it seems that like many Eastern European countries Montenegro also has its fair share of average drivers. As we carefully made our way around the sharp hairpin turns enjoying the Sparks superior handling, fellow road users showed flagrant disregard for the Highway Code and beeped horns with gay abandon as they squeezed their inferior vehicles through miniscule gaps despite clearly having the obstruction on their side of the road (animals!).
After about 20 minutes of horn beeping and hand gestures we finally got to the beach. Having been asked to leave a private hotel section of the coastline we found a nice spot and lapped up the Vitamin D. In the evening we returned “Sparky” with heavy hearts and had a couple of Gyros’ (Google it!) to cheer ourselves up! The next day we were leaving Montenegro and boarded a nice bus back to Herceg Novi after we refused to get on another one that resembled a 1970’s pub.
In Herceg Novi we were shocked to find that the next bus to Dubrovnik didn’t leave for another 4 hours so instead we paid €35 for a nice taxi driver to take us. It took 2 hours and only cost us €13 more than the bus so we were pretty pleased. He also gave Laura and chocolate coated banana sweet. Once back to Dubrovnik we phoned our accommodation and a bear of a man Nikola came and picked us up. That night we went into the city and ate at a really good vegetarian restaurant before getting picked up again and taken back to our hostel.
Laura and Stani xxx
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