Unique Property Blog: Montenegro

Montenegro: Part 1

Last time I came thru here the country was called Yugoslavia, and I remember hitting the capital, which at the time was called Titograd (now it's called Podgorica) and thinking it was a rather pleasant place to stop. I stopped for a couple of weeks. I was waiting for the number of people waiting there to reach a magic number, but unfortunately it didn't.

This time I approached Podgorica from Albania. I had just driven up from Shkoder. On my previous visit I had been trying to get into Albania, with no success. The government would only allow chaperoned parties to enter and they had to number forty persons. There were only seven of us hanging around in Titograd at the time I gave up and headed off to Mostar, which in those days was in the same country. Nowadays it is in a separate country called Bosnia.

The Balkans is still a very confusing place. I am not at all sure what is going on. When the last war was over I said to Julie that I must get down there and start buying property, but several friends who came from the area, Serbs, Bosnians, and the like, told me that the underlying feelings had not changed and there would be more trouble, and so I missed out on the reserging property prices.

Nowadays I note a kind of ambivalence among the locals. Some look forward to continuing peace and some prosperity. Others are very wary, saying the old feelings will die hard. But there are mega forces in place to bring prosperity to the whole region, and with it, if not peace, then at least a containment.

There is supposed to be a cultural fault-line running thru here. This used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but Austria is to the north, and is somehow a different place altogether. Serbia seems to have nothing in common with Austria. But what about Hungary? Where does Hungary stand? Is it part of the Balkans, or is it on the other side of that fault-line?

The further south you get the more obvious it becomes that something has changed, and you cant work out which way things are going to jump.

Croatia is leaping ahead with plans for touristic development. It is in a good position. It has a long history of tourism. I visited Porec, and similar developments in the north forty years ago, and they were thriving. They have changed little. So has the economic climate. It has see-sawed with the decades, but the downwaves have been steep and prolonged. Things are currently looking good, but.... who knows?

Bosnia is sleeping just inland. The main ravages of Mostar have been built over, but several streets, especially opposite the barracks, are heavily pock-marked with gun-shot wounds, and too many houses are bomb-sites.

Further south, Montenegro has largely escaped the worst ravages of the recent war

It is a small offshoot of the old Yugoslavia. Alternatively it is a very old Balkan country which was eaten up by Tito and the partisans after the second world war and is only just recovering.

Touristically it is an extension of the Dalmation coast just to the south of Dubrovnik, with some amazing fiords in the north of the country, miles of sandy beaches in the south, and intriguing discoveries inland.

It is about the size of Wales, with a population of about three quarters of a million people, most of whom live in the capital, Podgorica.

I landed at Dubrovnik airport, hired a car and drove south to the border. To one side the sea, to the other a steep mountain escarpment with Bosnia on the other side.

Everyone is very nice at the airport. The road is typically southern european, with that telltale grey surface, and designer holes. The top of the escarpment is in the clouds. Everywhere up the steep rocky sides of the road are clumps of cyclamen in full bloom.

I roll slowly down to the border check-point. All is slow and relaxed. There is only one car ahead of me, and as I pull in it moves off.

I drive into Hercog Novi, looking for a hotel. There is a large five star one just off the centre, where the reception is on floor 9, or thereabouts, while the beach is at level 1. A nice room overlooks the gardens, with the sea just visible thru the palm trees. Supper is cheap and cheerful in a restaurant on the almost deserted front. It is october. The season is virtually over. It is warm. The bank tills give me money. The wine is tolerable. Tomorrow I can suss out what is going on here.

Meanwhile the lights come up, and glint all round the bay, and the lights of the fishing boats in the bay rock gently, and I can hear the waves trip over the sand all of twenty feet away.

Under the tables are the cats. One sits facing me with a slightly menacing look. I throw a piece of gristle onto the floor. The cat sits there mesmerized by the meat. It stares as if trying to bore a hole in it. Then it slowly moves forward, puts out a paw, and kicks the meat sideways, and jerks back in self defence. It sits and stares for another minute, and puts out its paw again, gradually, delicately, nervously kicking the meat to see if it will retaliate. Then suddenly there is a pounce and the meat is grabbed and the cat darts away to hide under a piece of metal at the end of the restaurant to eat its prey.

The town is small and cute, hidden away in amongst the trees on a steep slope bordering what looks like a lake. This is all very odd. The sea here is lapping in a giant fiord. There is a small gap in the hills, and the sea gurgles in, and spreads out into a great lake, which then thins down to another narrow gorge and the water goes on inland, calm as a tranquial lake miles inland. There are palms and banana plants everywhere. On the hillsides are lots of spiky cypresses. It is an Italian Norway. Okay, what a load of rubbish. This is Montenegro. And everywhere I go there is birdsong, and there are trees, and views, and people, and everything is smiling rather shyly, and I know I am going to really like this place. It has that feel.

The Town Centre

The town is on a steep slope, with a fortress right by the water, and a castle at the top, ruined and unrestored, and natural. There are gardens everywhere. I walk up from the main street, up streets of steps, with trees everywhere, a yucca plants, some amazing bushes covered with yellow flowers, persimmons, quince, and big green balls of grapefruit.

Now it is great, and charming. Soon I guess the european civil servants will get at it, and offer grants to "improve" things, and the fort will be renovated, the streets tidied up, and the whole place will be made safe for travellers, and it will only be fit for five year olds. Go while it is still a place for adults.

There are inlets under tangles of trees, and quaint jetties, and places where the sea meets lawns and orange trees, and a fresh water spring bubbles out of the gravel straight into the sea, and cyclamen bob amongst the rocks.

In the morning the sun strides down onto the buildings, the sea, and the edges of the rock, and it glows on the surface of the water. I eat breakfast overlooking the fiord, then walk along the shore and watch the sun wander aimlessly amongst the early morning mist, sucking it in. The mist whirls around and gradually disappears, and the sun warms the top of the mountains.

I meet a girl called Dada. I am not sure about that. What language do they speak here? I know that da in Romanian means 'yes', which is encouranging, but I ask what 'dada' means here in Montenegro. She giggles.

We drive down to one of the sites I am interested in buying. We follow the coast road, gentle hills coming straight down to the blue blue sea. Just off the coast is the island of Sveti Stefan.

Tomorrow I will go down to the undeveloped beach just beyond it where the nudists play, but today we are going further. The bay is small. The hill is steep. We walk along the edge of the site, and then stop for a coffee in the beach cafe.

On the way back I stop for a kid hitch-hiking. He is going in to school.

"Late, aren't you?" I suggest, but no, he is on the afternoon shift. The school runs two sessions a day with different kids. The morning shift runs from seven in the morning. His shift is from 1.30 to seven in the evening.

I drop him off in the middle of Budva, which appears to be a large car park facing the beach, surrounded by a few houses. I sit on a rock and look down on the scattered village. I am looking at it as it will probably be by the end of the decade, with houses right up the lower slopes of the hills, and coming right up to this bend in the road, and the car park wont be there any more.

I double back to Prizno. There is a shingle beach and a little restuarnt overlooking the boats bobbing on the water. There is a funny little rock of an island with a ruin on top, once used as a sailors' quarantine. It is so close to the shore I would have thought it useless for quarantine purposes.

I drive down the coast to Ulcinj. I need some handles on the words here. I stop and get a lesson in the local language and find that the j is pronouced ya.

The villages go by, while the sun dawdles down the sky. I hit Ulcinj, which is a small village surrounding a small conch bay of fine shingle. I park outside the old town which is surrounded by an old stone wall. I walk thru the gate, along small stone paths, past piles of rubble, ruins, and repaired houses, and semi-repaired houses. There are courtyards with lights glowing out of parlours which are covered by pergolas of vines, the leaves turning fiery red, under tunnels in the stone down to the battlements and a hotel. The last few yards I am followed by alarge marmalade cat.

There are girls out jogging in the dusk. I reach a large terrace area, and look back at the new town tumbling down to the beach. There are minarets everywhere. Apparently most of the population here comes originally from Albania. But I dont hear any call to prayers.

I book into the hotel. It is in a great position, right on the edge of the old town, right up on the battlements, with the Adriatic twisting and turning on the rocks below. My room is a suite in an adjoining building, overlooking the ramparts. The sea is worrying at the rocks below like a dog with an old bone. I have a terrace all to myself along with the sea below.

The bats are swooping in the dusk, and I have set up my chair on the terrace and I am watching the lights of the town, the sea, and the changing sky-scape,. Two cats have come to join me, while below the sea is getting into some serious heavy breathing.

I eat a rather nice meal and retire for the night to my suite of rooms. There is a television. I dont own such a beast at home, but am always intrigued to watch it abroad. I sit and watch endless movies late into the night, finally crashing out with the door and the windows open. It is half past four in the morning and the sea is still splashing and gurgling around below the old city walls. This is nice. I am really enjoying Montenegro.

After breakfast I head south again. There is not much further to go. There are beat-up old cars on the roads, some with registration plates, some without, most with great rips in their body work. I drive down a one-way street, but the traffic is operating two-ways. There are narrow cattle-grids across some of the treets where the drains run. There are cabins by the side of the road, with big wooden steps up to them. The cafes are full of men drinking raki for breakfast. The town suddenly goes silent in the rain. I pass a building site with bent nobbly branches acting as acro-props.

I drive out of town south towards Albania. I pass an old woman with massive buttocks pushing a large wheelbarrow laden with mushrooms. The road turns into a dead straight highway following the beach (Long Beach -- 12.5 kilometres). Then suddenly it stops, and drops down to a country lane between thick hedges, small fields, with brown cows, which looks just like a country lane in deepest Somerset.

Then suddenly there is a barrier across the road. I stop the car and get out. Beyond me is the river, and I can see a large shed, and three launches drawn up on the land. Overlooking everything is a sinister pylon with a watch-tower on top. It is like something out of a fifties spy movie. It is seriously creepy. Over there is Albania.