Hotel Astoria Again

We went to Hotel Astoria the evening of our drive back to Pristina from Split. The food was still very good, as were the scenery and the service.

Budva Pizza

For my birthday last year we went to Croatia. We stopped in Budva on the way there and back. For dinner on the first evening, we had pizza.

Pizza In Budva

Random little pizza restaurant in Budva that was close to our hotel as we stopped overnight on our way to Split.

Villa Masline Food

Hotel rooms that were actually suites were 25 euros per night. There was a lovely pool area with sparkling water and trees all around. The only reason it was so cheap was location - it was up a steep hill from the beach. We had dinner there on our last night. The mushroom soup was fantastic. So was everything else. All home made to order (earlier that day). Definitely worth it.

Big Dinner At Hotel Astoria

We ate at a hotel in Old Town on the beach. Very nice atmosphere, view, and food. The wine was expensive, but the rest was a decent price. Loved the food.

Old Town Cafe

We walked around the old town part of Budva and stopped in for lunch at this little outdoor bar. They had pretty and tasty canapes. And good mojitos.

Breakfast at Villa Masline

Memorial Day weekend was spent in Budva with Kerry. The hotel we were staying at did breakfast. This was our first one.

Roadside Restaurant in Montenegro

While driving to Sarajevo, we stopped at a roadside restaurant in Nish, Montenegro.  It was good, even if the service was iffy.  Eventually the owner waited on us because his waiter ignored us.  I had chicken soup and schnitzel.  Andreas had greek salad and grilled chicken.  We would go back to this place!

Virpazar

After we left Split, we had to drive home. Considering the roads in Montenegro's interior, it definitely wasn't going to be a one day trip - cutting through Serbia was out of the question. So we decided to spend the night in Podgarica. Big mistake. Podgarica, Montenegro's capital, is permanently locked into communist flashback. No hotel that we could find. The place is depressing. It was getting late and we'd already driven quite a ways, so we pulled out the Lonely Planet to find a place to stay. The result: going back over Lake Skadar to Virpazar and entering (weird music here) The Hippie Zone.

Virpazar is right next to the lake, a national park that is a wetlands preservation project. Most of Virpazar's meager income is the result of tourists going out on the lake. This place is at least as poor as many places in Kosovo. It was built on a medieval fort, and most of the fort is incorporated into people's houses. For example, these stairs lead up to a decrepit place that's still used - it has a dog and sheep in the yard and some flowers, but no electricity, no running water, and so on.

This is across the street from those stairs. You can see these houses were built shabbily also on fortifications. In the valley below, there's a gypsy camp that's even more pathetic than the houses. Total population of Virpazar can't be more than a couple of thousand people. It did have one advantage over the town on the other side of the lake - no huge dump right next to the road.

And now, why I call this The Hippie Zone. The place we stayed was Hotel Pelikan, founded in the Sixties and still stuck there. We ate at the restaurant, which is more what the place is than a hotel (it has four rooms, which are basically bedrooms in the house: ours was across from the family's living room. It was small, spider-filled, and the bathroom floor was always wet from the shower overflow. We were desperate, though. The next nearest place on the way home was through all those tunnels and such, and a ski resort that might not even be open in the summer. So stuck we were.

We took a walk around the town (taking all of ten minutes to do so), and went to the restaurant for dinner. It was at least as much of an experience as the room. i was given a wilted bouquet of local wildflowers when we sat down to dinner. With the exception of the frozen mixed veg, it was obvious everything was from the local area. Our first course was mulberries. I don't think I've -ever- been served mulberries before. There was a cold fried dough, some honey, and olives - uncured, new olives. The veal was from an old milch cow from its toughness, but at least it was thoroughly cooked. Someone associated with the place came by with fresh water chestnuts he pressed us to try. By the end of the meal, we had somehow acquired a basil plant on top of that. The only other customers were a foursome of French caravaners who decided to eat out instead of cooking. All in all ... weird and definitely an imitation of an acid trip.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

You know ... Europeans have a general dislike of all things American these days - not the people, but that America doesn't listen to them and doesn't engage in giving them money hand over fist to "do good". In response, I'd like to present one of the places we came across in Montenegro, in the town of Risan. Risan is just around the bay from Kotor, and just as beautifully situated, on top of having something to do, courtesy of the US government.

USAID helped build this structure, which protects the remains of a Roman villa, including some nearly intact floor mosaics. The mosaics are being restored to their former glory, also with US tax dollars. Did I mention this is one of the very few places you can get into in Montenegro for free, no matter your nationality? Not only that, a local will explain the mosaics and the layout of the villa to you on a guided tour.

Here is our guide and one of the mosaics, in the floor chamber of the bedroom. I have to say, the villa was in much better shape than what I saw in Normandy last year. There are a lot of aid programs in Montenegro, both US and EU funded. In Kosovo and Croatia too.

Lots to See, Nothing to Do

We left Budva just after noon on Saturday the 25th and took the scenic route to Kotor; boy, was it scenic - right down to the two way one lane road edged on one side by the bay and on the other by walls. This first shot is from that road. It shows Kotor from a distance and it just strikes you as yet another old town by the water. Very pretty with the mountain behind it, but there are a lot like that in Montenegro.

It seems like most other towns of any size, that is, until you get close up and see these massive town defense walls rising to the summit of the mountain. I'm still stunned that people put walls all over that mammoth hillside. Definitely worth the view, but...

if you don't sail and you don't hike, what do you do in a place like Kotor? We went because we'd heard it was -the- place in Montenegro for anglophones to go, as Budva is for Russians. They must have meant anglophone fitness freaks. Truly, the only things to do in Kotor are sail and hike. No beach. It takes about half an hour to explore the old fortress.

So, we came, we looked at the magnificent fortifications from the bottom, and we drove on.