In and around Montenegro

When I said we more or less saw Montenegro in those fifteen days I wasn’t exaggerating. It’s a small country to begin with and we had so many excursions during which we drove through all regions of this ecological state that both our program director and Montenegrin contacts said we’ve seen Montenegro. And here are a bunch of pictures so you can see it too!

Unlike Kotor and Biogradska Gora, we didn’t spend more than a few hours, normally just a few minutes, at the next places but they gave us a balanced overall impression of Montenegro so here are other pictures to document those fifteen days.

Cetinje the old capital of Montenegro which now has many used to be embassies that taken up other uses since the capital switched to Podgorica. For instance the German embassy is now an art school.



Pršut, a sort of smoked ham that this region of Montenegro is known for. Njegoš (author/prince) lived in this area so it’s called Njeguška pršuta.



This is a fishing town called Rijeka Crnojevica built around Skadarsko jezero (lake)


Bijelo Polje, a town an hour away from Biogradska Gora.





Bečiće, the first beach I’ve been to since August! The water felt freeeezing to me and the sand was sort of dirty and moist so I’m still looking forward to familiar beaches back home but I’m so glad it’s beach weather again!


Tara Bridge overlooking Tara Canyon the second deepest canyon in the world (1300 meters!), the deepest in Europe, and the longest canyon in Montenegro.






A monastery near Tara Canyon where the nun made the girls put on skirts to enter!


Etno selo (ethnic village) near Tara Bridge. The man who lives on and owns this land was more than happy to show us around. He herds sheep, leads water rafting tours, and rents these cabins in which there’s a bed and only a bed, not even a square inch of floor space.



A second etno selo with slightly larger cabin rentals. Again we were treated with utmost hospitality by the couple who run this “village” and they even gave us some domestic raspberry juice they make.


Kolašin, a town half an hour from Biogradska Gora





A second of six national parks in Montenegro. We got to the very top by route of a narrow and bumpy path and discovered untouched, fallen snow! So obviously…




During the winter this national park operates as a ski center





Lovćen: another national park (the third of six) in Montenegro. This one had a long staircase leading up to a tomb of a famous Montenegrin author and royalty—son of King Nikolić—Njegoš.

That is not the long staircase; the majority of it is through a tunnel behind me.


Montenegrin coast, prelepo (so beautiful)

I think this is Budva but I could be mistaken



Montenegrin inlands, prelepo




Another monastery we stumbled across, no skirts required.



Lastly Bosnia! We didn’t really go to Bosnia—we didn’t even get stamps on our passports, the best part of crossing a border!—but the only way to get from Montenegro to Croatia is by an 8 km stretch in Bosnia. To play up this trip to Bosnia we stopped at a gas station which had a view overlooking the one coastal part of Bosnia. There are two international students in our group and they’re required to get visas for all the countries we’ve gone to and a few months back Andres (from Colombia) realized we’d have to pass through Bosnia to travel between Montenegro and Croatia so Ceca, our program director, looked into whether they would need anything for those 8 kilometers. At first she was told that they’d need a letter of invitation and a transit visa but eventually they said it’d be alright to do without anything. Still we were all a bit hesitant when we got to the Bosnian border but everything turned out absolutely fine.