Montenegro, Hercig Novi and return to Croatia

After the squares we climbed a stairway of worn shiny steps to get to the entrance of the fortress which stands at the top of the town overlooking the harbour below.  Inside there were walls to walk and views to admire, nothing like Dubrovnik of course, but pleasant all the same and worth the small admission fee.  It didn’t take long to complete the visit to the fortress so we walked back down and had a welcome cold drink in a bar in the main square next to the town’s old drinking fountain and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the centre.

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Montenegro, Hotel Casa del Mare

The Casa del Mare it has to be said was a curious hotel; a bizarre mix of excellence, comic and incompetence.  This had started the moment that we arrived when a paperwork mix-up (their description) had led to confusion about room allocation, which turned out well for us because we had to be upgraded to one of the best rooms in the small eight bedroom hotel which we didn’t mind at all.

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Montenegro, Sveti Stefan and Budva

The next stage of the drive took us through and out of the National Park and on to the city of Cetinje, which, for a big city, had a curious absence of helpful road signs and we drove around the same streets several times looking for the main coast road.  Cetinje didn’t look especially exciting on a lazy Sunday afternoon, an old-fashioned sort of place with wide, tree-lined boulevards and grand public buildings, many of them fallen into disuse.

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Montenegro, Lovcen National Park

We had another busy day planned today and quite a long drive so we woke early and after breakfast set off in the car towards the National Park of Lovcen with a plan to go from there to the coast and visit Sveti Stefan and Budva.

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Montenegro, Bay of Kotor

 

Once past the border, in front of us we could see mountains again and after we passed through the busy and rather untidy city of Herceg Novi the road reached the sea and started to follow the winding coast line of the picturesque Bay of Kotor and in front of us now was one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions.

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