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First day of the month… but 90th day of the Great European Train Tour overall! The big one approaches!

The day started a bit grim, when we went out early in the morning to the bus stop, not knowing when buses would leave, since it’s Labour Day. We paid a whopping 42 € for the two of us, even though the booth lady wrote 20 € on both our tickets. When the minibus arrived, the driver asked us two euros each for the luggage. We tried to argue with him, his boss and the booth lady, but they were having none of it. We got in it pissed off. I hate the bus!!!

We drove around lake Skadar, which acts as a border with Montenegro, our destination. Again an easy border pass, we didn’t had to get off on the Albanian side. Albania was a beautiful country, full of super friendly locals, and, how to say, « authentic » train rides. But it really needs to make huge efforts on environment protection and to purify its nature from all the litter.

Pozdrav Crna Gora!

On the Montenegrin side though, we had to leave the bus, and got a brand new stamp in our passports. Well, mine is barely visible.

As soon as we go, the scenery changes and it becomes AWESOME! Tall green mountains that we climbed, going all the way into wetlands, as if we were in South-East Asia.

We changed bus (and paid another euro for luggage. Did I mention I hate the bus?) in Podgorica. Ah yes, Montenegro is not in the Eurozone, nor the EU or Schengen, but in 2006, when taking their independance from Serbia and Montenegro, they made a treaty with the EU to use the euro as their currency. They just don’t have their own.

To be fair, the next leg of the journey was nothing short of pure epicness, when we reached the hieghts above Budva. I don’t know how high we were but let me tell you I’m glad we didn’t fall from there. I lack the words to describe it. A vast bay, border by Alpine-tall mountains, covered in almost tropical forest, and bordered with sandy beaches. It was absolutely spectacular to gaze upon, despite the terrible overload of ugly concrete hotels. So pro-tip: don’t go to Budva proper, just arrive there with the road from Cetinje, then go either to Bar, Crna Gora [Bar, Montenegro], or to the Bay of Kotor.

The latter being our destination for today. And again, it’s just… just insane. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s way up there with Canyonlands NP, Roland’s Breach, the Preikestolen or Hallstatt. Seriously. It’s a bay composed of two main inner « seas », joined together by a narrow straight. It is fully encircled by epic high mountains, entirely walling it off. The city of Kotor is an old town, walled this time by man-made remparts, that goes all the way up a fortress on a peak, at nearly 300 m above sea level.

I don’t know when exactly mass tourism exploded in Montenegro, probably not more than 10 or 15 years, but now it’s there, and it’s there to stay. The city is sprawling with tourists (like us). The great advantage of that is how cleanly clean the area is. Especially after Albania, it looks pristine, as the clear azurean waters.

After a while, we asked where the bus to our airbnb was, since it would need over an hour walk to get there with all our bags. Then Kamel got the idea, that I wouldn’t have had by myself, of doing a tour boat, if it’s max 20 € each. We found one, and when the guy saw our backpacks, asked where was our accomodation. And he said the boat driver could drop us there!

It was worth every cents. We got with other, mostly French, people on a small speedboat, and had twice half an hour to stroll around the tiny village of Perast, and the island of Our Lady of the Rock.

This church lays on an artificial island, that was started to be build in 1452, when two sailors found a religious icon on a shallow reef there. Since then, every 22 July, boatmen sail around the island, and throw a stone in the water near its foundation.

The captain dropped us just 50 m from our airbnb, which was only a tiny bedroom, ut with a terrace with a fantastic view over the bay.

In the evening, we went for a restaurant nearby, and came back under a thunderstorm. What a fantastic day was the 90th!

By the way, I’ve compiled footage from both Albanian trains and a timelapse of the Elbasan-Durrës one into this video: