Podgorica

Today we woke up in Kupari, Croatia. Our morning was very early since we wanted to take the bus to go into Dubrovnik and hopefully enjoy the old town without all the tourists. We woke up at 6:50 and took the bus of 7:30. We were in Dubrovnik just before 8:00, went to a bakery for some breakfast and then walked around town. A few people had the same idea, they were out taking pictures mostly in the empty streets, but at least it wasn’t as crowded as yesterday. We spent some time walking, got a coffee and then at 9:30 took the bus back to Kupari. We were at the car at 10:00 sharp and started our journey to Kotor, Montenegro. We don’t have any signal on our phones for Montenegro so figuring out the road, parking places, super markets etc had to be done before we got to the border and our signal changed. The wait at the border was insane…it took us around one hour to cross, and after that it was about 3 hours to Kotor. We think the border crossing took so long cause there was only one officer for all these cars. Also, you would think that 3 hours is a long trip kilometre-wise..it was only 92 kilometres long! Around the coast of Croatia and Montenegro, it’s the best way to arrive at Kotor. Kotor is a small town between the mountains and a very busy port. There is a way to get there a bit faster instead of driving around for an extra half an hour - you can go on a small boat that takes you straight across. But the wait and cars for the boat were also insane! We opted for the extra half an hour which didn’t seem too much since we had already driven all that time. Since we were also going so slow, I got my crossword out and we both did that together 😂. In Kotor we found a parking (had to wait a little bit for someone to exit the car park in order for it to print a ticket) and then walked into the old town. It was packed with tourists but a very pretty old town (it did smell a little bit like sewage). We walked around, went up the old town walls and left just before all the tourists came off their cruise ship. The way to Podgorica was another 1.30h, but a lot better since there was hardly anybody going towards the capital. On our way we also passed through Budva, a very party like place in Montenegro (not our piece of cake). Arriving in Podgorica, our host was waiting for us and the apartment was very central and clean and lovely. Just what we needed after all that driving and hot weather. (I didn’t sleep this time, I kept Lampros company with my crosswords and my singing since we can’t have music on while we use the gps😂). We had a little bit of a nap and then went into the city to get something to eat. I forgot to mention that Podgorica is the original name of the city - after world war 2 when Montenegro was part of Yugoslavia, the city was named Titograd after the leader, Josip Broz Tito - it actually should’ve been Titovgrad but someone wrote it without the “v” and it remained Titograd from 1946 to 1992 when it changed back to the original. We walked to the central square, independence square and found a small burger shop with fab burgers. Very tasty and very reasonable. We also treated ourselves to a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt (we’ll be matching). Then we walked around town and came along the Morača river, where we saw a small canteen with music and decided to have a drink there (since were huge party animals, Lampros had a fizzy water and I had a Pepsi). The atmosphere was lovely and calm, the music and the river were perfect and there was also a tv screen with the olympics which we enjoyed watching. Then we came back to the apartment, had showers and we just set our alarms for 7:00 since we have a huuuuge journey tomorrow back to Greece! 🇬🇷Les mer