Hotel Mediteran Ulcinj Bar

... in a different kind of place.<br><br>We had at least 6 hours to kill before our night train left for Belgrade so we decided to wander around. While we were walking to the downtown area, I kept thinking to myself, "How is this country a part of the EU?" It was really dirty, with litter everywhere. The shops and stores seemed kind of &#8220;ghetto.&#8221; We eventually found somewhere to eat (after what seemed like a really long ...

... its odd that that Ulcinj hasn't marketed its ugly side&#8212;its history of piracy and violence. Other places have had huge success at marketing their sordid pasts, like Salem, Massachusetts, the gore tours of London, and the Dracula's castle in Romania, etc. Even the name, Ulcinj, is a PERFECT for creating the ambiance if piracy. Yet everything online about this city is trying to white wash its past and trying to ...

... Bar, a port city in Montenegro.   After a pleasant breakfast on the seafront boulevard and waiting for the tourist info to open, we found ourselves a home stay above the tourist info in an old Montenegrin lady's apartment.  From the obvious (hanging gardens of Bar - see picture) to the subtle (the protractor next to the sink in the bathroom - why??) to the unavoidable (live DJ pumping out trance music across the road until 3 in ...

... as any of the American Joint Chief's of Staff; even wearing his gold colored in sigma upon his green military cap. He had many gold colored metals hanging from his uniform on the left side by his chest. I was privileged to see him this way; I confess being impressed. I was surprised to say the very least. Darko said to stand next to Mladic insisting on snapping some photos of the two of us. Mladic placed his arm around my shoulder and I his; we both smiled as Darko snapped some ...

... basically was the same system, though an officer came on board and took everyones passport. The bus pulled over and sat as we waited for all the passports to be registered and stamped, which took about 45 minutes. It was pretty cold and rainy, but it was a great break from the carsickness and windy roads through the mountainside. Once we entered Montenegro, about an hour or so later, the scenery changed dramatically, and both alex and myself sat up in ...

This has been one of the more exhausting days in memory. Not so much for the number of activities, but more because of the sequence of events. I got a notice from my mom yesterday evening that Citibank had flagged my account on some charge and had blocked my card. Since an unusable credit card is not a very good thing to rely on, I had to make it a priority to get in touch with them as soon as possible. The silly thing is, I'm almost certain the questionable ...

After a gruelling 12 hour train ride from Belgrade, which was over a distance of a mere 600 or so kilometres, we arrived in Bar, a coastal city in Montenegro... We arrived at 1 am, which was rough! The lady at our hostel in Belgrade said that it would take 20 hours by train so we left way earlier than necessary! Arriving in the middle of the night makes ...

... twice as the train passed a huge ruined castle jutting westward from the causeway allowing road and rail traffic to continue directly to Bar. Later on I read that it was the 400 year old Turkish castle of Lesendro, and luckily I had my camera at the ready to take a quick snap. We arrived in Bar sometime around 8.30am, and immediately made for the centre of town in search of a café where we could get a coffee and freshen up a little. The city had quite a modern look, with many ...

... downer, aside from the price of accomodation which i wont even mention, is that the one church i really wanted to visit was closed. There is another piece of the true cross inside, so unfortunately i missed that one. Unless it opens early tomorrow, but none seems to know. Montenegro is utterly different from Croatia, which is only about an hour away, or indeed anywhere else i have been so far. Infrastructure ...

We left Dubrovnik early in the morning after stopping at a bakery to get some freshly-baked strudel and Croatian treats, and then stopping to eat those pastries out on the lowest road out of Dubrovnik. You cannot take this route by car, but on a bicycle you can avoid the traffic of the main highway to the Montenegrin border by taking a very small road which hugs the cliffs and provides a home for scores of stray cats. It ...