few hours with… Montenegro
I had the time and opportunity to visit a small country next to the Adriatic sea — Montenegro. It is a small but very beautiful country with a lot of mountains. I come from quite a flat place so I really enjoy these mountain views. Usually, I like to plan my whole trip by myself from A to Z but as I had a quite busy working schedule I took the lazy version and bought this travel from the travel agency. They took care of a flight, hotel, and few trips in Montenegro.
It was the end of August and the weather was still kinda nice. In the mornings and all day it was quite hot. In the evenings it was a little colder, it was more comfortable with a sweater. My hotel was located in the city of Budva. Didn’t do a lot of research but heard that it is the largest tourist city. The hotel was about 10 min walk from Budva's old city. It’s beautiful in the day but quite awesome when it gets dark. Lights everywhere, a lot of people wandering through old cities very narrow streets. On every corner, there are smaller or bigger cafes. Between the hotel and the old city, there was a small harbor with a lot of very nice boats and of course very awesome mountain views.
As I mentioned before, this was a last-minute trip so there was no real planning but I had one goal — paragliding. In busy tourist walking streets, there were a lot of places where you can book a paragliding adventure. I booked my flight in the morning and later after lunch it was time to go. They picked me up near the hotel and we drove to Becici which is next to Budva. There were small problems with the weather so had to wait about an hour till my flight will begin. When was my turn to fly, the trip starts from the landing place and we drove with the paragliding pilot up the mountain. It took about 25 minutes to reach the place in the mountain where the flying will begin. As the winds were not the best for flying we had to wait another 30 minutes on the mountain before the fly. And then it was happening — I am standing about 15 meters from the edge of about 800 meters high mountain and we are starting to run to the edge and wind take us off the mountain. It's hard to describe in words but feelings are amazing. Everywhere you look it's just epic views — mountains, sea, cities. When the fly comes closer to the end pilot is starting to do some acrobatic tricks, I think my body has not ever experienced such a big acceleration but it was awesome. After that, we had a good landing, and paragliding was over. I have jumped with a parachute, also with a bungee, flown glider, and also motorized hand glider but paragliding is my favorite.
After some adrenaline doze, it was time to go on few trips around Montenegro. I went totally on three trips. The first trip was to a city named Kotor. Before reaching the city we had a boat tour to a very small island with a church on it. Views on mountains from this island were incredible. After the island, we went to Kotor. Similar to Budvas old city now we were exploring Kotor's old city — high walls, narrow streets, few nice squares and a lot of small cafes and shops. It was a half-day trip so it ended quite fast.
The second trip was actually outside Montenegro. We went to Croatia for few hours. The whole trip was to a city named Dubrovnik. Again we were in the old city, this time — high walls, narrow streets, and a lot of stairs. In this old city, they have a tradition of pigeons feeding in the central square at 12 o'clock. Pigeons are so used to it, they start to fly around the feeding spot at 11:59 and when the feeder comes with a bucket of food they fly towards quite aggressively. There are also a lot of street cats but they are not bothering pigeons at their feeding time.
The third and the best trip was to Montenegro canyons. It was a kinda long trip with few interesting stops. When we reached the canyon — the views were just indescribable, you can't catch those views in photos. Across the canyon was built a nice looking bridge, which fit into the landscape very well. To make it even more epic there was a zip-line attraction across the canyon. It was made very comfortable, you sit in quite a big chair and speed feels like very fast but in reality, you can easily hold your phone and film all flight.
The next great stop was at the Black Lake. It's quite a big lake and the color looks kinda black, also as everywhere-those great mountain views in the background. As it was a group trip we had limited time there but as I saw there were signs pointing to hiking routes. Sadly I did not have the opportunity to go hike but I believe it would be an awesome experience. As it was a whole day trip there was included lunch in some small family-owned cafe. Nothing fancy but was ok.
Between trips, I was wandering Budva, the Budvas old city, cafes, swimming in the Adriatic sea. Time was flying and the week in Montenegro was over and I had to fly back, probably the only thing I did not enjoy was Tivatas airport. It is a very small airport and tourism in Montenegro is growing rapidly. When you pass all security measurements you get to one large room but people there were too much. Everything else was amazing, the local people were very friendly, prices were very acceptable and probably someday I will return there.
