Mijovic Apartments Budva

... and wool blankets. So we all got to sleep during the ride. (Well, Andre and the two guys got to sleep.) The train was really loud for some reason (between the tunnels we went through and the loud rail itself) so I didn’t get to much sleep. Also, we got woken up by police once at the Montenegro border for customs and then twice more at the Serbian border for passport checks and visa stamps and customs. It was a long night.

... s sleep after a night's travel. There is a 'stari grad', an old town here, with wall and all, just like the textbook model, built to withstand attack. Now they're just tourist attractions. Who says our lives haven't gotten better through the course of history? Many do, imagining some romantic past without the Romans, full of fairies and runes and Venus figurines that meant we all loved each ...

... Mladic had in his wallet were obviously very old because his children were still very young in the pictures. It was evident he didn't have any recent photos of his family in many years; I sympathized with him in this respect. After reminiscing over family photos he got up sitting next to me across from Darko and Bojana. I let him hold my hand gently massaging it. He kissed my hand, inviting me to spend the night with him in the hills of Beograd; I declined on account of my strong ...

... down the speed limit was 50 and I was going 73. He was going to give me a ticket in which I would have to go the the post office to pay $30 Euros and come back to show him I paid so he would let me through. Since I was following 2 other cars going the same speed, I think he pulled me over due to my Croatian license plates (they don't like one another too much). Anyway I told him that I saw a ...

... we spent some time around the boardwalk, a bit of the shine began to wear off. It turns out that Budva is a major holiday resort destination. The beaches were crowded with video arcades, water slides, disgusting bathrooms, and speedo-wearing Germans. It took some time before we found a beach I liked too. I should explain that I consider the average beach, a steadily sloping incline of sand, to be boring. I prefer boulder-strewn ...

... followed the stunning coastal road around the mountains. I also got my first sense of quite how busy it was going to be. Driving through Bar and other similar towns at 9:20am, there were already swarms of people heading for the beach. It was packed! My driver kindly dropped me off at the bus stop in Budva (which is good as I wouldn't have had a clue where to go) and I caught the next bus to Kotor. Kotor is a beautiful small walled town, which those ...

... splashing up on me and kept my temperature under control. The only thing better than the weather was my view. The giant island of St. Nicholas, frustratingly, seemed to remain in the same spot no matter how long or hard I paddled. (I later learned it was 1 km from the shore). But the open Adriatic beyond the island, the fortress walls of Budva to my right and the stone mountains of Montenegro behind me made the rough journey even more bearable than ...

... get annoyed. On the other hand, I could find my own way like when I went through Slovakia or Turkey (the first time in '04) but both of those experiences were a lot tougher than anything else I've done (with the exception of Egypt)... back to the narrative. They told us that the price has always been 40 Euro. I didn't believe this, and Bro was particularly unwilling to put up with such price deviation. After an excrutiating trip from Tirana, that saw ...

... but the demographics are different. Gleaming white yachts line the piers, and bronzed, nearly naked nubile bodies frolic in the freezing water. Umbrellaed tables crowd the beach, and bartenders offer fruity cocktails; their svelte patrons sip these juicy alcoholic concoctions in time to the ubiquitous bass while watching other hardbodies watch themselves. It is a narcissistic, see and be seen orgy of sun and alcohol poisoning. In short, a little better than the alternative a ...

... as well. Someone at a little outdoor stand selling lavender products in Hvar noted that this year there are a lot of Americans traveling here as well. It seems that Croatia has been discovered - and here I thought we were going to someplace off the beaten path. Well, that's it for now . I hope you enjoyed this entry and the attached photos. There are hundreds more where these came from...we'll be happy to show you all of them upon our return. :) Until next time... Andy & Lynne