I woke up several times from the rain during the night. But to my releaf it stopped raining by the time I went for breakfast. I changed my plans to explore the inner country of Montenegro and stained one the coast. I'm craving a day of relaxing, but I want to find a place worthwhile, so I decided to try my luck in Shkoder and take the short road to reach it. from there I want to head in the Albanian mountains in the north. After studying the topography and and osm I found some small roads and interesting terrain to look for a challange. But first I need regather.
To road along the coast lead through one hotel town after another. I also realized why the fijord yesterday was not like the rest of the coast, at the entrance there was a big signpost with the unesco logos on it. Crazy that these days, if you want to protect a beautiful place, you need uneso-regulations or make it a national park, where you charge visitors at the entry to support an army of rangers cleaning and protecting the place. If you don't do that, the mans avarice for profit will destroy it all. Stupid white man.
This morning when I checked out, I saw a postcard of a nice old town. I asked the beautiful receptionist if this is from here, and she said that indeed it's the old town of Budva, ten minutes from the hotel. I completely overlooked it yesterday, while my eye was caught by all these hotel complexes.
In bar I went for a coffee and here it was time to say goodbye to the mediterranean sea, snif.
From bar I took a smaller road taking me up in a higher valley and away from the coast. Looking back to the sea, I saw a couple of rain clouds emptying themselves over the sea, moving towards the coast. Better the sea gets a bit "sweeter" than me getting soaking wet.
As I rode through the suburbs of Bar, I got more and more reactions from the people. In the valley there was also agriculture, something I had not seen in Montenegro yet. And suddenly, looking at the cretes of the hills south of the valley, I felt like something rattled in the memorybox. It was nice to see these bear white-gray rocks, with sharp characteristic shapes. They were surrounded by autumn colored trees. This is the second time now. The first one was during a snack stop with the english boys. We chose a small lagoon, and there was also a statue of Maria in a small grotto. Probably these memories where from my childhood from one of those times my family and me took the land way to reach Greece during a summer holiday. But this is around twenty years ago and the ghosts I encouter are so weak, that I'm not sure if they are there at all.
As this valley slowly went down towards the plane where I expected the border to Albania and not far behind the city of Shkoder, the clouds and the fare mountains of the Albanien alps were a spectacular view.
After the border reaching suburbs againg I could not help noticing that all the wealth and shinyness seems to be concentrated at the coast. Some make a lot of money in real-estate and the others get feed up working around the hordes of all-inclusive-tourists.
But the kids here were really cool. Almost all oder them greated me, or ran towards the street stretching out the had to get a five from me, or shouting stuff I interpreted as encouraging.
Traffic in the city was chaotic, cyclists were using both lanes of the street in both directions and small motorcycles, often with ladies sitting one the back with both legs on one side (ladylike) were contributing to the tumult. The cars were watching out though, actually everybody was, and nobody seemed to abuse one the gas pedal. So it was a rather relaxed chaos.
I stopped at a hotel a bit away from the center to ask what a room costs. It turned out to be rather fancy. When I said to, the receptionist that this is too porsh for me, he shrugged and replied; "it's not poor it's traditional"
The town does not have a very touristic allure, but there was a tourim information where I got help to, find a cheap accommodation. On they way there at a crossroad an old man was asking me where I come from, luckily his son (I assumed) was there and translated. He also was joking that he has a daughter to marry.
I like the city, quite authentic.
