Montenegro–raw, beautiful and still quiet

“We need to do more local festivals.”  This was the observation by my husband that led us to Montenegro.  For as much travel as we’ve had the opportunity to do, we have not done much in the way of local festivals or events.  Lucas discovered Boka night in the Bay of Kotor, a festival where people decorate boats and parade them around the local harbor.  The discovery of that festival led to the planning for an amazing trip that was so much more than a local festival (the local festival WAS amazing though).

The flight to Podgorico, the capital was about 3 hours total–easy.  We arrived in the morning and picked up our rental–literally the smallest car in the world.  This small little car turned out to be SUCH a blessing–not so much up the mountains but definitely on the super narrow roads around the country and especially around the Bay of Kotor.

We started off with a visit to the old capital city of Centije.  It was a good opportunity to stretch our legs after the flight, see the old city and eat some lunch.  The town was slow paced and quiet and the highlight was the old French Embassy.  This building was magnificent and clearly French.  We have no idea where the old U.S. Embassy was (if there was one?!) but the old French Embassy was located on this old grand tree lined street and we walked down it imagining what a bustling diplomatic quarter it must have been decades ago. 

We hopped back in the car and continued our journey to Kotor.  Along the way we could see smoke from the forest fires that were burning because of the combination of extremely high temperatures and high wind.  Soon that smoke became very much a reality as we were literally driving through nearby active burning and smoldering lands.  We passed many fire trucks in the road and the smell of smoke was soon in the car.  We were driving through a national forest which was beautiful, despite the fires dotting the forest.  Our destination was a monastary that is situated at one of the highest points in the country and on a clear day you are able to see almost the entire country–the smoke obviously obscured much of our view but it was beautiful nonetheless.

We continued on our drive to Kotor and were struck by the rugged mountains, craggy rocks and bushes and trees which had the look of fall colors–they were a beautiful burnt orange and then pine green–it was gorgeous.  As we approached Kotor from the mountains, we pulled over to get our first glimpse of the bay and it was easy to see why this place is so popular–especially with cruise ships.  Looking at google maps I could see that this spot was only about a 35 minute ride by car from Dubrovnik, Croatia.  From what we heard, Croatia has become pretty crowded (parts of it anyways) and Montenegro is still pretty undiscovered—we definitely saw that for ourselves.  Don’t get me wrong–Croatia is definitely still on our list but I’d encourage you to add Montenegro to your list if you are considering a Balkans trip.  Montenegro still very much has a feel that locals run the place and not the tourists.

We made our way down a VERY twisty road–switchback after switchback and each turn offered more and more beautiful views of the bay.  We passed a zip line opportunity for 10 Euros–literally across a canyon.  I told Lucas that I’d jump out of a plane any day but absolutely draw the line at zip lining.  Yikes!  It did look beautiful though–but so was the view from the road.

We stayed at a Boutique Hotel, the Palazzo Radomiri in Dbrota which is the town next to Kotor and we learned that the property was owned by the government and severely damaged in the 1979 earthquake.  The current owners bought it from the government after the earthquake and completely rebuilt the place into what it is today, a gorgeous spot right on the water.  So much charm and comfort and excellent service.  Another highlight of the hotel is that they offered yoga every morning overlooking the bay–perfection.  Our first night, we ate dinner on the pier, both of us facing the water and mountains as we watched the light change over the bay and enjoyed a delicious fish (caught locally that day) and swiss chard.  The swiss chard!  SO GOOD!  AND!  They serve it with EVERY fish meal there—I was in heaven!

One of the first things we did was to walk to the old city of Kotor, which is surrounded by old fortress walls and right on the water.  The cruise ships dock and people come off to explore the old city.  We walked through the old city to get to the starting point to “hike the walls” basically to hike to the top of a VERY high mountain to reach the monastary.  To be 100% honest, I wanted to stay and explore, but Lucas promised we’d come back after we burned a few calories–ok, ok. 🙂  Lucas is always dragging me up hills and I always grumble but once we reach the top it’s ALWAYS worth it.  And he’s always right about it (just don’t tell him that).  The hike up to the top was VERY steep but luckily we did it early enough that the trail was pretty much covered in shade the whole time.  It was fun to see the town and bay slowly get smaller and smaller as we increased our elevation.  When we reached the top we celebrated with a beer and our hike that was definitely worth the panoramic and breathtaking views.

After our hike we gave our legs a rest and meandered through the charming streets of old town Kotor.  There were cute little narrow streets, historic churches, cute little shops and outdoor cafes, and CATS!  There are cats everywhere and are known as the cats of Kotor–abandoned cats come to live here apparently.  We enjoyed some delicious rose at an awesome wine bar where we enjoyed an amazing charcuterie plate and people watched.

Another little town about 10 minutes via our baby car from our hotel is Perast.  We parked outside of the town and walked in and were rewarded with beautiful views of the red clay topped houses, churches and boats in the harbor.  I fell in love this little place instantly and wondered how/when I could come back, rent a little apartment and just live there for a couple of months.  It was quiet and small and had a very peaceful feel to it.  There was a place for sale on the water for 180,000 EURO, trust me, I was tempted.  A short water taxi ride away are two islands, one housed a monastary that we weren’t allowed to go to so we just viewed it from the water and the other was a gorgeous bright blue domed church.  The blue domes was something we hadn’t seen before on a church and it was so striking.  The two islands are surrounded by calm waters and striking mountains climbing right out of the water–it was spectacular and my eyes couldn’t get enough.

And THEN it was time for BOKA NIGHT!!  We were there early enough to grab a spot on the harbor with our feet dangling over the water and drinking our grocery store bought wine and beer, super classy. 🙂  We had a first row seat to view the show.  We had basically no idea what to expect and it was so fun and funny to watch these strings of 4-6 boat floats tied together all decorated passing by in front of us, showcasing their creative and decorative skills.  There was a cake, a couple dancing, someone putting out a forest fire, a genie lantern that puffed out a HUGE plume of smoke unexpectedly–it was amazing and pretty funny to watch.   After watching the parade of boats we wandered around and the night culminated with a beautiful fireworks show–definitely motivation to check out more local festivals at our future destinations.

We especially enjoyed our meals, they mostly comprised of local fish caught on the day we ate it and in beautiful locations that Lucas found for us–tons of atmosphere and ambiance.  And the wine–who can forget the wine.  The white wines, Chardonnay specifically, were very buttery and delicious.   A perfect complement to the fish and swiss chard.

It’s difficult to rank the places we’ve seen because they are all unique and we have fun experiences at each one—however, Montenegro is definitely at the top of our list!