Montenegro
Petrovac, Sveti Stefan, Budva & Kotor
From May 22nd to May 24th, 2023
Day 1
From Albania, we crossed into Montenegro via the Muriquan Border Crossing. We were apprehensive that it was going to take hours, but to our delight it only took about 30 minutes. We crossed on a Monday around 11:30am.
On our way north along the coast in our drive to Kotor, we stopped at Sveti Stefan where, under normal circumstances, a luxury Aman hotel sits and luxury shops & restaurants are all around. There’s currently a dispute between the Montenegrin government and the Aman Property group, which is what is keeping it closed. The striking ‘island’ that you have to walk across a bridge to get to is beautiful in it’s own way and we look forward to going back and being able to see it in it’s glory. The beautiful pebble beach is relaxing and fun to waltch locals enjoy themselves on the sand. The ‘sand’ is more like very soft pebbles that are the color of burnt red… we’ve never been to a beach like it.
After spending about 20 minutes walking around Sveti Stefan, we hopped back into the car and made our way 20 minutes north into Budva. We didn’t know much about this town other than it’s recommended in a lot of guidebooks and there are a good number of excursions here. Once getting to Budva, we parked and walked to have lunch on a pier on the boardwalk at a place called Jadran. We polished off our lunch with raki, their local digestive. One raki was of plum and the other was of quince flavor. We let our waiter decide for us.
We walked just a little further deeper into Budva and found the ‘old town’ where the hallways are thin like they are in Venice and the churches are old and made of stone. We climbed to the top Gradenigo Tower and The Citadel Stari Grad, took some pics, then retreated back to the bottom to hop on a boat for a 1 hour panoramic boat cruise. We hired a boat to take us around on the water for an hour and paid about 50 Euro for the ride. From the water we could see beautiful walking and hiking trails all around Lake Budva, kind of like Australia’s hike from Bondi Beach to Bronte Beach. The skipper played his own music and we had a good laugh at his song choices (from Billy Idol to Janet Jackson).
After half a day of driving and city exploring, we still had yet to make it up to our hotel, so we hopped back in the car and opted to get to Kotor via the car ferry crossing at Lepetani. The line was not long and the crossing itself took about 15 minutes. We didn’t save much time if we were to have just driven around the lake, but we wanted the ferry boat experience.
Once we arrived, we were due for some relaxation at our hotel One&Only Portonovi. It was just barely the hotel’s two year opening anniversary and we could tell they had put a lot of investment into the property and it’s surroundings. Our hotel overlooked the bay, we had our own mini beach, and the facilities around the hotel were incredible as well.
We sat for dinner outside at the Italian restaurant called Sabia. We had pizza, pasta, salad, wine… and of course, finished off with a raki digestiv.
Day 2
Around 10am we departed from the ‘marina’ Tapasake at our hotel and took a Riva boat out Kotor bay. From our hotel, we went directly to the Blue Cave to beat the crowd. On our way to the Blue Cave we boated past an old prison near Boka Kotorska. After the Blue Cave visit, possibly the coolest thing we had done was to go inside an old Yugoslavian submarine tunnels near Kumbor. It was amazing to put in perspective the size of the submarines and what life might have been like in Montenegro during wartimes.
After the brief submarine tunnel visit, we took the Riva over to Our Lady of the Rocks, one of the most visited places in all of Montenegro. The small man-made island was made famous since 1452 because of a stone that was found that had the likeness of the Mary Magdeline’s face on it.
There were parts of our boat tour around Kotor Bay that reminded us of Lake Como. Although not identical, there are a number of similarities between the two and fun to talk about the pros and cons of the two places against each other. Max was excited that we saw one of his favorite yachts, Luminocity, parked in the marina. The skipper told us the boat has been docked there for the past 3 years.
We opted not to stop in Perast, but could see that it was a very common site to visit. It’s only about 1.2 km long and most people say you can see all you need to see there within 1 hour.
We docked in Kotor and walked around the old city. We could see an amazing old wall structure at the top of the mountains meant to protect Kotor. We wished we had planned better, because otherwise we might have done the climb around the city walls. We walked through The Square of the Arms and that’s when the floods of cruise boat tourists started pouring into the city. It might be nice to find a time to come visit the city of Kotor when the cruise ships are not docked.
Our skipper had a great recommendation he wanted to take us to for lunch, so we took his advice and stopped off at Hotel Forza Terra. We could quickly tell that this spot is very boutique and not many people are privy to knowing to come here. We had one of the best coursed seafood meals we’ve ever had. Hailed as the ‘best restaurant’ in Montenegro (from those who are in the know), this restaurant has only 10 tables and most recently were visited by Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.
Our boat tour was ending so we headed back to our hotel to rest up for dinner that night at the sushi restaurant (like a Nobu) called Tapasake. During peak season and on weekends, this place doubles as a beach/day club. They had a live DJ playing music and the atmosphere was fun and upbeat.
Day 3
We woke up in the morning and spent a little time at the beach in front of our hotel. We grabbed a quick bite of lunch before setting off for Croatia. We crossed the Debeli Brijeg Border Crossing around 1:45pm on Wednesday and the total crossing time took less than 10 minutes. Our favorite land border crossing of all time!
Next time we visit we plan to check out:
Being in One&Only Portnovi with friends during the peak visiting time