Cycling in Montenegro

Our very late bus finally arrived close to noon at Dubrovnik's Central Bus Station, and Darrell and I scored seats on the right side to view the Adriatic as we wound our way south to Montenegro and around Kotor Bay. Our destination was the town of Kotor where we would begin our 6-day bike trip with 3e Travel a local travel company based in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.

The Bay of Kotor, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is often described as the "southern most fjord", but married to a geologist, I can tell you it is really a "ria" - a drowned river valley and its steep limestone hills were not carved by glaciers!

NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day from 2017

 Lord Byron wrote this about the Bay of Kotor: “At the moment of the creation of our planet, the most beautiful merging of land and sea occurred at the Montenegrin seaside...When the pearls of nature were sworn, an abundance of them were strewn all over this area.” Of course, this has now manifested in hordes of visitors (including us) descending on this confined area.

View of Kotor from the castle - the red-roofs in bottom right are the old town

We met Zoran and Drazen of 3e Travel at our hotel in Kotor when they delivered the bicycles and went over basic directions. The next morning I toured Kotor, which actually is a double UNESCO World Heritage site - both for its well-preserved medieval old town including the Cathedral of St. Tryphon built in 1166, and for its more recent 16th and 17th century Venetian fortifications.

Me at the castle enjoying the incredible view

We took a late afternoon ride on the quieter road to the northwest of Kotor to check out the bikes before we began our tour the following day. The tour route is shown below beginning at the red dot in the upper left and ending with a round trip tour to the red dot in the lower right.

Tour Map with each number representing where we spent the nights

Our first official day of cycling was around the upper Bay - we were lucky it was a "no cruise ship" day because the traffic was greatly reduced. We cycled clockwise from Kotor and met another cycling couple on the loop. Rosemary and Chris have embarked on a 6-month post-retirement cycling trip from Sicily to Scandinavia. We chatted in a park and then visited the Roman mosaics in Risan together. You can follow their adventures here!

Darrell on our first day of cycling - around the Bay of Kotor

Our second day began with Drazen giving us a lift up the 25 sinuous turns to Lovcen National Park with great views looking down on the Bay. We cycled downhill to the small town of Njeguši, the birthplace of the long ruling (1696 to 1918) Petrovic family, and also known for local cheese and prosciutto that we added to our lunch. The extra fuel powered us back up the hill and we continued climbing through the Park. At the south end we turned downhill and coasted through the otherworldly white stone landscape.

White limestone, green pines and grape hyacinths

We cruised mostly downhill to Cetinje, slowing down for sheep! Cetinje is the old royal capital of Montenegro where the President still presides. It is a charming town, and must have Montenegro's best stone masons!

Sheep rule the road

Impressive stone wall in Cetinje

From Cetinje we had another lovely, mostly downhill, cruise through Lake Skadar National Park to the even smaller town of Virpazar on the north end of the lake. We stayed at a lovely family home where the hostess waited for us after dinner to share her homemade liqueur - a tasty blend of good quality vodka infused with fresh rosemary and left in the sun for ten days. This is my kind of recipe - two ingredients and not much work! We work up early the next morning to catch our ride with Kormoran boats. Lake Skadar is the largest lake on the Balkan Peninsula and is known for its biodiversity, including 270 species of birds. We saw an incredible number of grebes and two flocks of Dalmatian Pelicans.

Early morning birdwatching on the backwaters of Lake Skadar

Dalmatian Pelicans are the world's rarest pelicans

 After our morning adventure, we had our longest and steepest ride - 72 km with almost a kilometer uphill. We also had a lot of rain, though it mostly came when we were huff-puffing uphill so we could stay warm. We saw some amazing views at the crests and bicycled through an ancient chestnut forest near the coast.

Darrell riding through the chestnut forest

We crested the pass - coming within meters of Albania at the top - and then finished up with a downhill to Ulcinj - one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic coast. For those of us with a weak understanding of European history, this edited bit from Wikipedia may give us some excuse: Ulcinj was founded in 5th century BC, was captured by the Romans in 163 BC from the Illyrians, became part of the Byzantine Empire when the Roman Empire was divided and was under South Slavic rule for a few centuries. In 1405 it became part of the Republic of Venice and in 1571 part of the Ottoman Empire. The fun doesn't end there but I don't want to leave you dizzy. Do note that their latest independence didn't come until 2006...

Highlander dress - Ulcinj castle museum

It was in the Ulcinj castle museum that I first became obsessed with this highlander dress. It is heavy wool but I'd love to recreate it as a lighter weight skirt. Highlander dress - Tirana History Museum

From Ulcinj we headed towards Shkoder, Albania - near the south end of the Lake Skadar. Darrell got settled in to work in our hotel, and I biked to Rozafa Castle high on the hill with great views all around. We had a great trip cycling in Montenegro and leave you with the view and some great advice!

View from Rozafa Castle