Zabljak - Budva

A real pea souper

Left our snowy wonderland this morning for the sunny climes of the Adriatic and a town called Budva which is part of the Montenegrin Riveria.

On the way down South we decided to stop at a monastery built into the side of a cliff going by the name of the Ostrog Monastery which is open to Orthodox, Catholics & Muslims faiths.  (And evidently Heathens also.) 

Built into the side of a cliff it is quite a sight but nothing like the sight that led us there.  

Road to Ostrog

After about an hour on the road we hit some very thick pea-soup fog.  This made the driving an interesting proposition as we had to ascend up another winding mountain road without a guard rail and more certain death waiting just off to the the side.  (Why can't they build these bloody churches on the flat ground?)  

As if impenetrable fog wasn't bad enough the bitumen soon deteriorated into a hodge podge of gravel, some bitumen, massive potholes and nice big puddles.

Ostrog Monastery

Lucky for us a Serbian stunt driver in front ploughed on impervious to the dangers ahead so we just followed as close as we could hoping he knew where the road was.

About 5kms from the top we popped out above the fog which was pretty neat and into blue skies and sunshine.  One minute we couldn't see Jack and the next we could see for miles.

The monastery was a but underwhelming but they had cheap coffee and hot chocolates and a good view so that numbed the pain a bit.   

Feeling adventurous we went back down the mountain and decided to take the back roads to Budva instead of the main highway.  We had lunch in a little town somewhere and then went through the Capitol Podgorica (formerly Titograd) which had quite a lot of flash new buildings and looked like a happening place before continuing on to Budva. 

Mountain road down to Budva

Because one lot of thick fog wasn't enough earlier in the day the descent down the mountains to Budva was a repeat with more of the same to test your driving reflexes.

Finally descended far enough down to punch through the lower reaches of the fog and drove into Budva and found our apartment.  

Our home for the next 5 nights.