Montenegro

Just booked flights for October. Know absolutely nothing about the place, we´re flying into Podgorica and probably going to rent a car to explore a bit.

Anyone been? Tips and advice gladly received, especially any bike related tours etc.

Went a couple of years ago, loved it!

Definitely visit Kotor, fascinating medieval walled town with a great walk from its centre (up many many steps) for amazing views.

Also don’t miss a drive up to Durmitor mountain region to the Tara Valley (deepest valley in Europe I think) and go white water rafting. You start in Bosnia but meet the guides on the Montenegro side and they take you over – use Tara river rafting company – this May sound a hassle but honestly it’s dead easy and the drive up there alone is amazing.

We didn’t know much about the country and what it had to offer, genuinely blown away by the place.

And everything is ridiculously cheap, beer, food, car hire and rafting etc

Have fun:)

I went last month with my two sons aged 9 and 5. We were staying in the south near Albania on the coast which wasn’t as nice as the North Coast around Tivat and the Kotor Bay. There are some great little beaches up there and the riding potential of the whole country is huge. Amazing scenery all around. Need to go back. Loads of apartments up and down the coast for last minute accomodation.

a friend had the MG turbo one, it was rubbish.

Not been but excellent part of the world in general to visit. Stunning scenery. Enjoy.

I stayed in Kotor. Really nice small town by the sea, well worth a visit.

We spent just under a week in Budva, that’s a nice seaside town with an old town like a mini Dubrovnik.

I’m off there for a week in mid-September to the same place my sister and hubbie went last year. Looks ace if the pics are to be believed.

Chris Tarrant did an extreme railway journey or whatever his programme is called through Montenegro and the railway and bridges looked terrifying. Probably available online somewhere and worth a quick view.

yoshimi – that sounds excellent – does it work without a car?

Durmitor national park is rather nice.

Black lake area especially. You can walk from the lake up to the peak of one of the nearby mountains in a day quite easily.

King’s Landing Dubrovnik isn’t far from Montenegro, if you’re driving.

The road bridges around and about are extraordinarily scary.

It is a long time since I went (early 80s, family holiday, still Yugoslavia) and inflation was so bad then that sterling was “worth” something like 30% more of the local currency by the time our two weeks were up. For some reason, you could find people willing to exchange it absolutely everywhere with no problem whatsoever. Tourists were made quite welcome in general.

I am convinced this forum uses a better algorithm than Facebook. This thread popped up as I was in the departure lounge in Podgorica airport, after a 2 week holiday.

Some random thoughts:
– the coast is very (too) busy in summer – October will be quieter, also possibly a bit rainy. We stayed on Lustica peninsular, which was a bit quieter. Kotor was quite busy, but would probably be a good base in October.
– hire a small car, rather than a big one. You will still end up reversing on the small roads a bit. Some of the bigger roads are OK, but average speed on small roads is very slow.
– You can just wander into the submarine tunnels and old forts near Rose if you like urb-ex.
– Mobile roaming is expensive. However, Wifi is everywhere. 4G reception is good and cheap with a local SIM card.
– Food is cheap. You can eat well for EUR10 per person
– Ostrog monastery is OK, but not amazing
– Would not plan any biking. Would probably be quite good, but saw very little. A few MTB hire-bikes, but they were more BSO than anything worth riding. For road-riding, some good climbs but far too much traffic.
– We spent some time in Durmitor also, which was pretty good (though were staying about 90 minutes drive away which was too far). If I went again, I would stay at Eco Selo Nevidio for a few days.
– Failed to fit in rafting or canyoning. It would have been better to have arranged more before we left, rather than just rely on TripAdvisor while we were there.

Thanks for the info. Kotor, Durmitor and Budva are on the list. I found a company that does biking in Durmitor, so I´ll report back how it goes.

Flights were ridiculously cheap, although it is Ryanair. Stanstead to Podgorica for £69 return with bags and priority check-in. I´d love to take my bike but I wouldn´t trust Ryanair with it and it´d be another £200 since we´re doing 4 seperate flights (Biarritz,Lon,Pod).

Found a nice, if a little over dramatic, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZv-KtQal_U