The magic of Montenegro

From Albania I crossed the border to the magically beautiful Montenegro. I stayed the first two nights in a small seaside town, Ulcinj, where most of the population is Albanian. I rented a private room in a large family villa a ten-minute-walk from the old town and the beach. In the garden grew kiwis and my host's elderly mother-in-law was working the flower- and vegetable beds in the mornings. I seemed to be literally the only tourist in the small town so early in the season - in the Summer, however, it is packed with Russians.





Ulcinj is very small - just like this one of Europe's youngest countries Montenegro, granted independence as recently as 2006 and home to only 626 000 people. Most of the country consists of the blackish rocks that has given the area its name.





Contrary to Albania, people here are often more actively religious, especially in the countryside, and I enjoyed the monotonous singing for prayer from a nearby mosque morning, evening and once in the middle of the night.

Like many towns and cities along the Balkan coast, Ulicnj has a very rich history and an old city centre with a preserved fortress, that apparently in historic times had the reputation of being a piracy site. Now the old town mainly consists of tiny, tiny winding streets and worn-down buildings where a lot of preservation and restoration work was done while I visited. In the high season you will find hotels, restaurants and bars all around the rock where the historic city centre is. Below it, the small more modern central street climbs up the hills from the sandy beach.

My second and only full day in Ulcinj, the weather was absolutely wonderful with sunshine and hardly any wind. I spent all day at different places by the sea, sitting on rocks in the sun eating picnic, writing and just listening to the waves splashing. I was also engaging in a lot of small talk with Montenegrin people I met - everyone was very curious why I was there so early on the season, and especially why I travel on my own. I got three (!) dating-/marriage offers during the day, all from relatively young Montenegrins who found my Swedish boyfriend to be a very irresponsible and careless person to let me out on my own... I kindly explained to them that Swedish women are independent and perfectly capable of traveling on their own. This truly amazed them. They were all very nice, though, and sincerely interested in talking and finding out about my traveling, my life in Sweden and how I found their little town. This is, I guess, the advantage of traveling during low season - locals actually find you interesting as a tourist, rather than just annoying. 

After two nights I got up very early to take the morning bus to my next stop, the also very old and very charming town of Kotor. Like Visby on Gotland in Sweden, this town has a very old ring wall enclosing the centre from the sea and presumably from pirates and other threats back in the days.

It was possible to walk upp the steep mountain some 1350 steps to the ancient ruins of the defense fortress. Of course I engaged in this to satisfy my appetite for views!

From the top you had an amazing view of the small but lively and very, very friendly little city beneath, hidden in a corner of the Bay of Kotor, almost totally surrounded by the dark steep cliffs.

Unlike Ulcinj, Kotor was already well visited - but I was told it is so packed with people in July and August that you can hardly move along the narrow streets in the centre. Not being a beach resort, though, most tourists this time of year come by cruise ships and therefore only spend a few hours or maximum one day in town.






















In Kotor I stayed in a hostel, centrally located and with very friendly and social staff organizing dinners and pub crawls almost every evening. I met a lot of very fun, adorable and interesting people here from several continents, and also enjoyed a hostel dinner with local food and a pub crawl/party night. After living a slow and quiet life for a while, it was great to have some fun with other people and hanging out in an international environment for a while!

Montenegro is definitely a place to come back to - even more beautiful and (still) cheaper than Croatia, with dramatic landscapes and small, cute cities, and with people as eager to socialize and help you get around as in Albania.

After two and half a day in Kotor, I shared a taxi with three of my friends from the hostel, taking us along the stunning coastline and over the border to the most Southern part of Croatia and my four days of adventure in Dubrovnik - which I will tell you about soon...