Hotel Petriti Ulcinj

... and hang out for a while. I can&#8217;t even really remember what else we did in Bar. I remember walking the long walk back to the train station early because we were so bored and cold. We played chess in the smoke-filled waiting room then hopped on the train. <br><br>Oh, and another thing: in Montenegro (and as you will read in a later blog entry, in Serbia) people can smoke almost anywhere. It&#8217;s crazy. Europe is much ...

... eine Kombination? Stempel gab es erneut keine:-( Die Reise fuellt meinen Reisepass nicht besonders.<br><br>Ulcinj ist eine ueberwiegend albanische Stadt in Montenegro (das grosse Problem hier auf dem Balkan ist ja, dass in jedem Land Minderheiten leben, die an einigen Stellen allerdings die Mehrheit stellen). Und hier gibt es Touristen, keine ...

... together to find a place to stay for the night, knocking on random doors with the sign "sobe" aka rooms for rent posted above them. Since it was out of season, some of them weren't renting rooms at the moment, but we finally found a place for 15 Euro a person. The evening wasn't so exciting - we spent a bit of time exploring town. Like most towns in this region, there's an Old Town ...

... English. Their Italian came from the days of Communism when they surreptiously rewired their TVs to receive Italian TV broadcasts. They taught us some Albanian and laughed at our tries. The Albanian language is unlike any other language I have heard. It is in its very own linguistic branch (Indo-European) and derived from the ancient Illyrian language from 2nd millennium B.C. I am not sure why it's considered an Indo-European language when it does not sound anything like ...

... There are more trees here than in Croatia despite Ulcinj not having had rain all summer as well. Little Beach is the main beach right in the middle of town. It was packed. There was not a sliver of space anywhere. I think all of Montenegro and Albania must come here. It is a pretty beach in a perfect setting. The town reminds me of those classic small beach towns like Carolina Beach, Jamaica Beach and Rehoboth Beach. There are only a couple of hotels with most ...

... night, it's pricier than either Budva or Kotor, but still decent. More conveniently though, the owner has also lined up a seat for me on an onward furgon (minibus) to Shkodra departing at 6:30 tomorrow morning. It's about twice the price of the bus, but also twice as fast and, in any case, the selling point was the onboard AC. I've had enough of long rides in cramped buses with broken fans and temperatures equal to the outdoors. I'm not sure if I'll be able ...

... place many people encounter upon arriving in Montenegro, as it's both the ferry hub and the coastal terminus of the rail line from Belgrade. Amazingly, there's a tourist office in town. I headed straight that way to find out how to get to the one redeeming feature in the area: the ruined old town of Stari Bar a few kilometers out of town. The girl there, friendly and well-intentioned, tried to sell me a big booklet on the attractions of Bar (?!), but I ...

... double bed, one bunk bed room. The problem was the kitchen was blocked off, which was the only other room in this private apartment. Disturbed by the principle of the matter Steven tried to pressure for the kitchen, which also was the only place to sit. The owner blew up and so did the agency and they said go away. We went to another and ended up getting the same owner. Different apartment though, had to share with the owners and had to share a bed with Kirsten. Nothing ...

... the mangled, rusting guard rails shielding us from the crevasse were accompanied by dozens of shrines to those lost over the edge. Despite four layers of grime on the windows the sight of the valley floor below made the heart flutter whenever we screamed around a corner. But we made it in the end and a complimentary beer (one per day!) was waiting for ...

... bombed out... Sarajevo was really undescribable...a vast dichotomy existed within the city as much of it was still destroyed...really not a building was without bullet holes...yet many parts were quite vibrant and hsutle bustle...they have a fantastic market with tons of goods...turkish coffee...beautiful boxes and jewelry and great resturants...but around the corner are bombed out buildings with ordinance still in them. Seeing the '84 olympic park was very odd...many of ...