Towards the end of our tour in Croatia we spent a fair bit of time considering what we would do next – the days were starting to get shorter and the temperatures suspiciously more brisk (to quote Thomas: “Well, it’s certainly not tropical!”). Suffice to say, winter was coming. Neither of us are particular fans of cold climates (translation: we are absolute babies and throw our toys when there is the tiniest nip in the air or indication of mildly bad weather). However, given the current COVID situation, staying put in a region definitely had significant benefits over attempting to fly somewhere, incurring not insignificant cost and then, possibly, not being able to get back again. As such, we determined that it was probably time to attempt to toughen up and stay for the winter. Well, the jury remains out on whether we have really toughened up, but Montenegro was certainly the first test of this resolve.
We entered Montenegro through a small border crossing that was so quiet we were concerned that it was unmanned and we would have to turn around and retrace all the hills we had cycled down to get there. Never fear though, we made it through and entered Montenegro in relatively grey weather. We spent our first afternoon appropriately – eating way too much food at an excellent roadside grill and napping.
Our first real experience of Montenegro was the Bay of Kotor. The guidebook seriously talked this up, so, of course, we were somewhat sceptical. However, Kotor and its surroundings did, in fact, pack a massive punch. We cycled around the bay to get to Kotor itself and the cycle was nothing less than sensational – massive peaks soar above a mirror-like inlet while, at their base, cute towns populated with stonewalled buildings and old churches dot the waterside.
We spent a long time getting around the lake and taking numerous pictures before rounding a corner and being treated to a view of Kotor. Astounding city walls scale the hillside above the cute old town to an imposing fort overlooking the bay. We basically had no expectations, so were duly gobsmacked. We found our accommodation and promptly asked if we could stay two nights instead of the intended one. We spent our extra time in Kotor climbing the walls up to the fort and generally hiking around in the area. We also explored the old town and drank some of our excellent Croatian wine while contemplating the massive hill we were going to attempt on leaving the place.
In addition to determining that it was time to get used to the cold weather and stop complaining, we had also, on leaving Croatia, determined that it was time to leave the coast on which we had now spent over two months. With that in mind, we thought that Njegusi, the heartland of Montenegrin cheese and smoked ham would be an appropriate first stop away from the water (cheese being possibly the number one reason to travel anywhere). However, in order to reach this institution of Montenegrin cuisine we needed to scale the hills behind Kotor. This consisted of no less than 25 switchbacks to climb about 1,000m in altitude over the space of 20km or so. No small feat with all our luggage and various bottles of wine. Happily, our enthusiasm was rewarded. The weather turned lovely and we enjoyed impressive views as we slogged our way up the mountain. I will also report that Montenegrin road infrastructure so far has been far more enjoyable than the Croatian equivalents. Roads tend to be quite nice and proceed in relatively reasonable inclines in the form of switchbacks, rather than taking the most direct path available up to any particular point. On reaching the top of this particular hill, however, the weather gods determined that we had received quite enough of a good thing and it promptly got freezing cold and proceeded to rain buckets as we cycled into Njegusi. We retired to the first apartment we saw for the night.
There really is not much in Njegusi (except for the aforementioned cheese and ham), but the scenery is quite lovely – and we eventually saw this when we woke up the next morning and the weather cleared. We cycled onwards to Cetinje, the once royal capital of Montenegro (which people remind you about always and to which there is a lot of tourism literature dedicated). However, the only real draw in Cetinje is the museums for which it is famous (really one has to acknowledge that this is likely because the royal dynasty here did not last a particularly long time due to Montenegro being, at various times, controlled by the Illyrians, Romans, Slavs, Venetians, Austro-Hungarians and the Ottomans, not to mention its eventual inclusion in the various incarnations of Yugoslavia – not much space for a home grown dynasty with all that going on). We duly visited the museums, and actually found them all rather informative (if you looked past the decidedly heavy handed propaganda) and containing nice, relatively well curated, collections. However, if one was not into this sort of thing I really do not know what one would do in Cetinje.
The small road we cycled between Cetinje and Virpazar was possibly one of our favourite cycles of the trip. We were treated to tiny hamlets, homemade wine, insane fall colours and unsurpassable views of Lake Skadar.
We also free camped for three nights through this area and each campsite was absolutely lovely. Some photos below as evidence, but really the main activity was the cycling itself. Neither of us had really experienced fall colours in their full splendour before due to (i) being from New Zealand where the temperature change and vegetation does not really result in such a display; and (as mentioned above) (ii) not typically having a large interest to travelling anywhere that may potentially be remotely cold (given that we consider anything less than 10 degrees cold, this is somewhat limiting).
Cycling onwards to Podgorica (the capital, it turns out), we passed through Lake Skadar and hit the open plains surrounding the city. It felt something like the wild west with tiny towns dotting entirely flat countryside. On entering the city, we went through some very poor areas, which gave us a better idea of the country generally – only a population of 600,000, no real industry/resources and a history that only resulted in them entirely going it alone in 2006. Village life is still quite the thing, along with small holding agriculture. The capital itself was really an interesting mix. Old communist style buildings (graffitied on the outside, with old lifts, but with lovely apartments inside), sit next to the old town where small time rural activities continue (chickens abound, pigeons are reared, gourds are grown), and border the fancier downtown area, where pedestrianised areas are filled with chic cafes and restaurants and the local crew spend their mornings enjoying coffee and cigarettes. Each of these areas can be reached within a 15 minute walk of each other – definitely a place of distinct contrasts.
The inland of Montenegro is (no surprises here) filled with various mountain ranges. After some deliberation, we (I think rather gamely) decided to try and attack these in order to see a bit of the country. Our first foray was into the Morača canyon, which includes a rather busy road to the north out of Podgorica. The canyon itself is absolutely stunning and there is zero question in my mind that it is worth seeing – think a chasm of a canyon with a turquoise rushing river, surrounded by vertiginous cliff sides, more of the aforementioned autumnal splendour, idyllic plateaus and tiny villages dedicated to small holding agriculture in the form of chickens, minimal livestock and lots of honey. That said, the road through this canyon passes for something of a major highway in Montenegro (admittedly, it does not look too different to a lot of state highways in New Zealand). As such, this road was very narrow, had no verge, passed through various very dark tunnels and was shared with an array of fast moving traffic (including rather large trucks) all zooming around the bends at significant speeds while the drivers of said vehicles chatted away happily on their phones – stopping only to give us encouraging toots every once in a while as we slogged our way along the road. Admittedly, this was a touch hair raising at points. That said, we both thought that it was overall worth the effort (even including the 1,000m altitude hill in the middle) due to the scenery and the lovely Morača Monastery about halfway up the road, which included impressive frescoes that were not at all mentioned in the guidebook and which, once again, made us question the point of reading these things.
We made a stop at Kolasin, which is a main ski town in the winter, but was just pretty grey and cold while we were there. We went for a walk in the area, which was nice, but not a highlight. The most notable thing about our stop in Kolasin was that we tried Kacamak, which is basically a polenta mash made with lots of a local cream product (Kajmak) and lots of cheese. Tom was not super impressed. I was pretty happy about it.
One of the main reasons to head to this area of the country was really to visit Biogradska Gora national park – billed as one of the last areas of “primeval forest” in Europe. Neither Tom, nor I, were really sure what this meant, but it sounded impressive (subsequent googling revealed that this fancy sounding description is effectively just untouched forestry, but that does not really sound as evocative). The park itself was very pretty, with a nice lake, atmospheric forest and magnificent views (when the sun eventually came out and we motivated ourselves to hike up a big hill to take a look (view from the top in the featured image at the top of this post)).
This brings us to our exit from Montenegro and one of our main activities in the country. As mentioned above, we wild camped a fair amount in Montenegro – about a third of the time. This was due to there often not being a town at a reasonable distance for cycling and Montenegro really being very perfect for this activity with very little population and stunning scenery to be enjoyed. One could pretty much always find a totally epic spot to pitch a tent and it was easy enough to find wood and start a fire. If someone did turn up in the morning, they were very friendly and simply asked that we close a gate after ourselves if necessary. However, as we reached the northern areas of the country, camping became increasingly cold until on our last camping attempt it was -1 degrees and, after a pretty uncomfortable sleep in a potato field, we agreed that perhaps our gear did not quite stretch to this temperature. As a result, we determined it was probably time to move on out of the country and spent a lovely couple of days cycling along in absolutely spectacular sunshine, but absolutely freezing temperatures, in the direction of Serbia.
Overall, partly due to the time of year that we were there, and largely due to the country itself, Montenegro turned out to be one of our favourite spots to date. It is certainly worth noting, however, that good weather is something of a prerequisite to enjoyment of the place as there really is very little to do other than make the most of the various epic scenery that makes Montenegro so magnificent.
October / November 2020