Montenegro

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The Montenegran border is less than an hour from Dubrovnik so makes a good day trip, we went on a full day bus trip. When they say full day they meant it, we had to be ready to be picked up at 7am and got home around 8.30pm having done over 300km of travelling. After reaching Montenegro the trip took us around the fiords of Kotor. There are two small islets in the Bay by Persat; a natural one with a Franciscan Monastery and a man made islet with a Catholic Church on it. Further along the coast we reached the old walled town of Kotor where we got out to do the tourist thing. The town had a much more rustic feel to it than Dubrovnik, I guess that’s because it hasn’t been recently bombed and rebuilt. We spent an hour wandering round the town, unfortunately we didn’t have time to climb the walls up to the top of the hill and go to St Johns Fort. Although we finally found a church we could take photos inside, St Luca’s. After Kotor we began a long and winding drive up to the top of the hills. The hills were much greener than in Croatia and terrain was very rocky. We broke for a view near the top before stopping at a small Montenegran village for lunch. After lunch we went to Cetinje, which was once the seat of the Montenegran rulers where we had a quick tour through the old palace. Our final stop was the old walled town of Budva. Budva is similar to Dubrovnik but on a smaller scale. From Budva we drove round the bay further before catching a car ferry over the fiord, which shortened our journey back to Dubrovnik by hours. Montenegro appears to be gearing up to compete with Croatia for the tourist dollar with its entry into the EU and I am sure will be on everyones must do list.