Montenegro 04_060909

Kotor from on top of the old castle on the hill.



Montenegro has to be one of my favorite countries so far. Left Dubrovnik with Tom and Mark in the car and traveled down to Kotor a big tourist/ cruiseship stop off for one night. Kotor is situated on a lake and has a cool old town inside these massive old castle walls. We stayed in hostel inside the walls of the city, which for the first time in a long time was really nice and cheap.
That evening we walked up a million steps to the top of the hill to see the castle. Sightseeing done we meet up with a Finnish guy and went out with him. Fairly calm night as it went and I was happy to see my bed that night and a 12:00 check out was good for me.
The next morning we headed towards Podgorica and stopped off in Sveti Stefan in Budvar for a swim and a quick look around.
Driving into Podgorica none of us were too impressed by what we were seeing. Even people from Montenegro will tell you not to go there because it is such an ugly city from the outset but for me once you look around and are there on a weekend you'll think its a great place.
We got to our hostel/shed for the night and through our bags in. The hostel was really a dilapidated old house beside the national football stadium rented out by and old American guy who just filled it with beds. If you can get over the slightly run down look you will soon relies how cool the place really is. That also goes for the city itself.

The hostel is called Steve's place (Steve being the 50+ American who visited Podgorica a few years earlier and found that there was no hostel in the capital city and decided to set one up). Steve himself was not around for the first night that we were there as he had went traveling around Europe for 3 weeks but was on his way back. He had asked a guest, Sandra (20 year old Dutch girl) to look after the hostel while he was away (no worries). Sandra turned out to be our party hostess for the night. She took us out showed us where to go, mixed with some of the locals and a great night was had by all. Tom and Mark were moving on the next day but I decided to stay another night.