Along the beautiful and hilly coastal road we cross the border into the state of Montenegro and get the first stamp in our new passports. Visiting the picturesque walled town Kotor with the old fortifications on the mountainside, after having cycled the 40 km around the fjord, is one of the highlights. In the famous holiday resort Budva, with its fine beaches and its old walled completely rebuilt town (town was levelled by two earthquakes in 1979), we made a break, relaxing our muscles and swimming in the clear sea.
The travel inland to the Durmitor National Park is exciting with a magnificent scenery, with rolling green hills, the valleys, the forests where bears, lynx and wolfes live and the snow covered mountains and lakes. Impressing is also the 1.3km deep Tara Canyon with its turquoise colored water, impressing for our legs too, because rolling downhill is easy and enjoyable but it also ment to climb up on the other side of the valley. Bicycling in Montenegro and Serbia is excellent, because there is practically no traffic on the side roads which we mainly use. But the best here are the people, they are very friendly, helpful and hospitable. They wink or hunk hunk the horn to say hello. And we get invitations for rakji or get offered other drinks. We regret not to speak the language, not to be able to say more than "hvala" and "dobre dan". Of course we talk with hands and feet, and can make ourself understood, but it's just not enough for a real conversation.
To give you an impression on our daily routine; getting up early in the morning, preparing our muesli for breakfast, pack our things, pull down the tent and hop on the bike for 30 - 130 km with an difference of altitude between 200 - 1750 m, do sightseeing and shopping, eating and drinking (about 6-8 litres a day per person), looking for an appropriate place to camp, put up the tent, shower with 1 bottle of water, cook dinner, plan further travel and then sneak into the sleeping bag to do some reading before going to sleep.
Since we left Switzerland we only had to stay in hostels in 3 places, otherwise we were always able to find a place to camp, and never faced any problems at all. Also the weather plays very well, only once we needed our rain gear for about one hour. Very lucky. Whenever we visit a city, we get tempted to drink too much coffee and beer, just because it is so nice to sit in a streetcafes and watch people strolling by. Now here from interesting Beograd, the capital of Serbia with its famous Fort and many parks situated at the river Danube, the route will lead further to Romania.
