We enjoyed the Bay of Kotor a lot and climbing the Castle was the literal highlight! We sailed on and found more beautiful spots along the coast of Montenegro. In part 2 we will describe this part:
Budva
We visited Budva which has a beautiful old town, and like in Croatia this is called ‘Stari Grad’. I especially liked this text we passed: ‘Live your life travelling’.
And Montenegro is quite modern, besides the old city centers, but sometimes you discover references to the socialist and communist past like in this posters:
And a fun moment at this ice cream shop called Moritz, because the son of our LLuxembourgish friends is called Moritz. He has been on the catamaran as well (in 2020), but he was not here now and with this picture we wanted to let him know we thought about him!
After visiting Budva, we went back to the ship which was at anchor in the bay in front of Budva at the island of Sveti Nikola and took a nice swim. The water was so clear that when wearing snorkeling gear, you could see a lot of fish and the bottom at 7 meters deep. Kevin was enjoying snorkeling a lot and with a water temperature of 28 degrees it was really nice to be in the water!
Hawaii Beach
Sveti Nikola is known for Hawaii Beach, I have never been to Hawaii, but if the beaches look like this, I definitely would like to go there!
Close to Hawaii Beach was a nice fish restaurant, we went there with our dinghy and arrived at 19.30h. It was a small restaurant where the tables where situated on a veranda above the beach. We negotiated with the waiter for a nice fish dish for the six of us.
When we enjoyed our meal, we didn’t realize that in Montenegro the restaurants can close early. Although it’s Mediterranean area, it’s not like Italy where you don’t see anyone in restaurants before 21.00h, we noticed already in Croatia that dinner starts at 19.00h. And this restaurant opened at 17.00h and closed at 20.30u. We didn’t know until the staff of 3 came to our table and told us friendly that they were leaving now by boat. But we could finish our dinner and leave as the last guests. Huh? They just closed the kitchendoor and the bar and went away with the boat. We laughed, we never experienced being the literal the last to lock the place! So after dinner, we went to the dinghy and got back to the catamaran.
Caves
Close to Budva there were also nice caves to view. The dingy is so handy to have to visit places like this at your own pace and at your own time. Because we read from 10.00h it gets very busy with small tourist boats. We were able to visit the caves at 9.00h when it was much quieter.
Petrovac
Back at the catamaran after visiting the caves, we started sailing that morning. We didn’t have a specific plan, we read about Petrovac being a nice town. And sometimes when you have no plan, you end up in beautiful places. We saw a small rocky cliff off the coast with a picturesque church on it (called St. Nedjelja Church). You could lie there with the boat well protected from the waves with a view of the rock. So we anchored here.
During our ‘anchor beer time’ (drinks with snacks), Anna and Kevin talked about how this island reminds them of the musicalfilm Mamma Mia 2, when Donna (Meryl Streep) sang ‘The Winner takes it all’ and run up the rock waving her scarf and ending up in a small white church. Anna and Kevin are so creative, they wanted to make this videoclip as well, inspired by the movie.
We studied the music clip of The Winner takes it all, took the music, earplugs, a scarf and the drone with us and went to the rock with the church. Just before sunset, just like in the movie!
We did several takes, filmed with the drone, closeby and far away. Gilles flew the drone and I edited the video, with Anna and Kevin performing in a great way the famous scene from Mamma Mia!
At the end of us filming, we all walked up the rock to the little white church and enjoyed the view.
Later I saw the the footage from the drone was so great, that I made these 2 shots into pictures.
Back on the ship, we talked about the adventure of making the film and really enjoyed doing this. We watched the sun go down behind the rocky cliff.
Next day we sailed further along the coastline, enjoyed swimming along the way and Kevin and Anna had a lot of fun dancing and singing on the boat!
Bar
The last stop in Montenegro with our friends on board. Bar is a city where different religions coexist peacefully. The old town of Bar is one of the most important archaeological sites in Montenegro. The ruins of this old town date from different eras, including the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman times. You will find medieval churches and an old aqueduct here.
We walked along the old city walls and also enjoyed the area around the old town with shops and restaurants.
On the last evening we enjoyed another delicious Montenegrin meal.
The next day we said goodbye, we have had a great time with our friends from Luxembourg and it was also nice to get to know Kevin!
Ulcinj
We sailed further along the coast of Montenegro, because there was a last city we wanted to explore: Ulcinj. It is one of the oldest cities on the Adriatic coast. It has a strong oriental character due to the long Ottoman rule, which gives it a unique atmosphere compared to other cities on the Montenegrin coast.
Ulcinj was once a famous pirate town. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was a refuge for pirates who roamed the Adriatic Sea. It is even said that the famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes was held captive in Ulcinj for a while, which inspired him to write his famous work Don Quixote.
The old town of Ulcinj is one of the best preserved medieval fortresses in Montenegro. We walked up there during the evening, you had a beautiful view of the modern city with all the lights on the bay. We had a drink there and enjoyed the view.
Now we were close to Albania, what we would the next country we were going to sail into. But first, since Montenegro is no member of the EU yet, we had to check our at customs in the harbor office. And with this clearance, we could leave Montenegro and sail into Albania!
