Travel bucket list – Montenegro

I am about to embark on a 15 days Okinawa + Taiwan trip, and i have yet to blog about the Europe trip which happened almost a year ago! I thought i should do one blog entry before i go, and Montenegro is probably the most memorable among the places i have visited. The other-worldly feature photo you see above is that of Lake Skadar. Yes, absolutely breathtaking.

Montenegro is just a 40 minutes drive from Dubrovnik. Yet, i think, most people who went to Dubrovnik don’t know such a country exists. Apart from the many beautiful landscapes you can savour here, i was startled to learn how simple and honest the people are. It was unbelievable. Nowhere, and i mean nowhere in the world, have i met such friendly hosts who serve so sincerely. Unspoiled by tourism, for now.

Enroute to Kotor, Perast at midday
The cruise ship towers above all the buildings in Kotor town

You can enjoy the view of the harbour from the restaurant Galion. Good food and good view.

We always order risotto when available because the kids love things they’re familiar with – rice
Seafood pasta
Delicious octopus
If you notice carefully, the city wall zig-zags up the hill from the left, and down from the right. Sort of like a mini version of the great wall of China.

The main attractions of Kotor are the old town and the city wall. As the weather was rather hot, we lazed in the apartment for a while. The apartment was located up a hill, and it was so steep we needed help from the apartment owner to park the car. I think Montenegrins are probably the most skilled in the world to handle a car in such undulating terrain.

The sun was going to set by the time we started climbing up the city wall
The kids did really well climbing up to the mid way point by themselves. I never planned to go all the way anyway, and it was getting dark quickly.
Cute little church of St Luke in Kotor old town

The itinerary for the next day was Lake Skadar. The horseshoe bend was the main attraction for me, but it turned out that the little village of Rijeka Crnojevica was also mind-blowing beautiful.

Sveti Stefan, enroute to Lake Skadar, now a hotel open only to guests. Not much point making a stop here, but i did anyway.
Coming from Kotor, Virpazar is the first village by Lake Skadar one would encounter. We had a nice lunch here at Konoba Basta.
Pretty tasty food. The potato was mixed with some kind of local vegetable which was very nice. I also liked the bread which had a very interesting sponge like texture.
Cat climbs up and waits for food next to our dining table
What makes Lake Skadar interesting are the little hills that juts out
Idyllic Rijeka Crnojevica
Wedding lunch
The old bridge dates back to 1853
Like a scene from a fairytale

The area around this part of Lake Skadar happened to be full of wineries. We made a stop at a random one and bought two bottles of wine. Yet to taste the wine, but i’m sure they are pretty good.

This old lady helped me get the attention of the winery owners – two other ladies. I wonder where are the men.
I believe they kept some of their better vintage wine here in this cupboard, where i got my two bottles. A surprise souvenir we didn’t expect to be able to acquire on this segment of our trip.

As we drove into Perast, our stop for the night, we were greeted with a jaw-dropping sight.

I must have taken a hundred shots. We were there at just the right time, and the dark clouds created a very special mood
Montenegrins are very good at grilling fish, but the dish doesn’t come cheap (but actually still cheaper than some Chinese Tze-Char fish).
Perast is a small coastal village with only 350 inhabitants (i was told, during winter, there are just a hundred odd people around)
A close up view of the two artificial islets off Perast. I decided not to visit though.
The border control going into Bosnia. No visa required.
Bosnia will be a story for another day.. stay tuned 🙂
(Visited 88 times, 1 visits today)

Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *