Road trip to Budva

After crossing the border, you immediately see why it's called Montenegro (Black Mountain). There are huge mountains everywhere. But they're white limestone, not black.... no matter, they're impressive anyway. After many kilometers, another hairpin corner, identical to the last hundred shocked us with a sudden sweeping view of the coastline. Budva was a cluster of houses, hotels and resorts squeezed between a small bay and the foot of mountains jutting up just behind.

The next shock was the town. We had moving through progressively more primitive areas, tourist locations, but geared towards locals. Here we were suddenly surrounded by fancy resorts and hotels serving western European tourists at western European prices. Everything was so flashy and nice compared to where we'd been. Even the currency in Montenegro is the Euro, at almost 2 to 1 against the dollar. We got some expensive bus tickets and got out of there on the next bus.

The tip here is to take the bus to Croatia that "goes on the ferries" we were told. It was true, it was hours faster than the one they automatically sell you for the same price that skirts bays and fjords miles inland and has a lot more stops.

Off we headed for Croatia, with a stop in Herceg Novi (Montenegro) to change busses..