June 1st 2024

Today was such a long day, but turned out to be such a good one.

Last night we got an overnight sleeper train from Belgrade, Serbia to Podgorica, Montenegro.

It was quite the experience. We departed at gone 8pm so the sun was down and we didn’t get to see many of the views on the Serbia side before falling asleep.

A rude 2:30am awakening by Serbian border police definitely contributed to the overall feeling of fatigue which marred our day somewhat, but at least it meant that we were awake for the sunrise views over Montenegro.

On we rode through the Montenegrin countryside, and the Balkan mountains, on towards Podgorica and Lake Skadar.

We landed in Podgorica before 7am. We’d wanted to stay on the train and get off where it ended in Bar, but we’d booked to pick up our hire car in Podgorica so kind of had to get off.

In Podgorica we walked around until a cafe opened so we could leech some wifi, and then I spent four hours worrying about the car hire. In trying to find directions to the office, I’d found a load of really really awful reviews, talking of scams, fraud, and intimidation, and considering that most of the holiday depended on this car, it kind of had to go well.

So the morning was a write off, but thankfully the car wasn’t. The bloke did give us some medium-scam about how the security deposit wouldn’t be accepted via AmEx or debit card (the only things we had on us), and so we had to pay a €60 insurance fee, but after everything I’d read that was more than welcome.

And so we were finally on the road, and heading to our log cabin on Lake Skadar.

After a quick (three hour) Power Nap, we went out for a drive around the mountains that surround Lake Skadar.

That little island is an old prison. They call it the Montenegrin Alcatraz.

We stumbled on a tiny family-run vineyard and a bloke who didn’t speak a word of English took us down to his basement and gave us each a glass of red wine and white wine to taste.

We wanted to buy a bottle, but in all the car-anxiety of the morning, we’d forgotten to withdraw some cash and unsurprisingly he didn’t accept Apple Pay.

From the vineyard we headed to a beach on the lake’s coast (do lake’s have coasts?). The drive was precarious and Hannah’s fingernails have left a permanent imprint on the door handle of our Fiat Tipo, but we got there, and made some friends along the way:

There have been stray dogs everywhere in Montenegro, and Hannah has been determined to make friends with all of them. To the point that she even bought some dog food to bring along with us. No wonder they’re literally running after our car.

When we shook off the dog, we made it to dinner for sunset, which called the day to an end.

Until tomorrow, and what a day it was.

Jacn