Mountain-egro
Posted on 2018-12-03
We had a very rainy start to our stay in Montenegro. It started raining when we arrived in Herceg Novi, our first stop in the country, and then it more or less just went on and on. We planned to cycle around the Bay of Kotor, which is a system of big bays of the Adriatic, connected by small channels, flanked by steep mountains and reportedly very beautiful. However, the rain was so heavy that we could sometimes barely make out the other shore, so we quickly decided to take a significant shortcut across the bay by ferry when we came across one.
We originally intended to use the evening in Kotor for sightseeing and then to continue up the mountain to Njeguši the next morning, but in the heavy rain we felt like neither sightseeing nor cranking ourselves up a long serpentine road, so we spontaneously extended our stay by another night and had a rather lazy day in Kotor with a little sightseeing and some more trip planning.
Kotor Old Town and the Kotor Bay
The weather forecast for the next day then was still rainy, but less than before, and there wasn't much left for us to do in Kotor, so we decided to finally cycle up to Njeguši, which is about 20km of serpentine road up the mountain, and then some. Unfortunately, it started raining like crazy again, and once we were higher up, we also had lightning and thunder and even some hail. Nevertheless, on our way up, there were some clearer moments when we had impressive views of Kotor and the bays below us.
We also had the company of a crazy dog to distract us from the slow climb. Most dogs we encountered so far ignored passing cars, but barked hysterically at us passing cyclists. This one, however, happily followed us up the mountain while chasing and barking at every passing car. We tried to shoo it away for its own good and send it home to Kotor, but it wouldn't give up despite the horrible weather and followed us up all the way. Even after we reached our accommodation in Njeguši, it kept loitering around the house, and it was already dark when we finally succeeded in chasing the poor thing away. We don't know if it then ran the 25km back down to Kotor through the night...
Njeguši is a small village in the mountains, mostly known for being the origin of the Petrović dynasty of Montenegrin royals. We stayed in a small, new house built in traditional style and heated only by a wood oven. We ended up spending most of the evening trying to create enough heat with wet firewood to warm ourselves and dry our clothes.
The next day, we finally had nice, sunny weather and a short and easy ride to Cetinje, the old royal capital of Montenegro and still the seat of the president and several ministries today. Cetinje is also considered to be cultural and spiritual heart of Montenegro, and is home to the Cetinje Monastery and the National Museum of Montenegro. As the former capital, the city also contains several interesting former embassy buildings from before World War I, but we spent most of the afternoon in the huge National History Museum, learning about the turbulent past of the country.
The ride from Cetinje to Podgorica was an easy downhill ride again, so we arrived early enough to do some sightseeing in the current capital of Montenegro. On the way down, we had spectacular views of snow capped mountains and of Skadar Lake, where we would head next. Podgorica itself does not offer much to see, as the city was almost razed to the ground during World War II, and was subsequently rebuilt with the basic designs typical of Eastern Bloc countries. Nevertheless, we still found it interesting to explore this city, that is home to more than a quarter of the country's population.
