Montenegro

This day I started out of Kotor. I took the bus to Herzeg Novi, went to the old town which was nicely preserved, then down to the harbor to see the coast of the bay with the Croatian peninsula on the other side.

Than I went up to the castle, a nice but not very impressing one, especially after Kotor, and from there to the bus station.
In the time I had to wait I had lunch and rather good local beer.

Than by bus to Risan, a nice but touristic village, on one of the coves of Kotor bay.

From Risan I walked to Perast, an old, well preserved village.
It used to be fishermen village but became a tourist attraction.

In the bay near Perast there are two tiny islands with a church on one of them.

From there I had to walk quite a long way to the close bus stop, where I took the bus back to Kotor.

I spent the evening at the old town.

The cost of Crna Gora has many bays and coves, so the road goes up and down mountains and sometimes in tunnels.
The view is very nice.

In Tivat I took the bus that goes along the coast of Kotor gulf.

This road is so narrow, private cars can pass side by side, but a bus or a truck haven't enough room to pass in many places, so they or the car have to wait in a wider spot, and even so it takes sometimes some maneuvers, so the ride is slow.
But it worth every minute. The gulf of Kotor is called Europe's southernmost fjord and actually it has a few connected fjords.

It was a perfect place to spend two nights till my flight, and on the day of my flight there were 3 buses going to Dubrovnik.

At Kotor's bus station a local guy offered me a cheap room and after some bargaining I agreed to see it.
It was in good location, walking distance from the old town and quite reasonable.

I went straight to the old town, strolled in the streets and alleys, and in the afternoon climbed to the top of it, to the ancient Illyrian castle.

The glacier that created Kotor's fjord let an almost vertical hill.
It's almost unbelievable how they built a city there.

Nowadays only the low part is used for living and commerce, but in the past all the steep hillside was inhabited.

There are walls around the old town, the side walls go almost strait up the mountain, like the Chinese wall or the walls of Ston in Croatia.

The main harbor is still highly active as a commercial port and a marina, but the river harbor and another little one at the other corner of the wall are only tourist attraction and are not in use.

At night the walls and some buildings on the hill are lit with soft green light and make a beautiful view.

There is no bus or minibus service from Shkodra to Podgorica, the capital of Crna Gora even though it's not far, maybe about 1.5 hours instead of about 50 min. to Ulcini. So I waited for the
8 O'clock bus to Ulcini. Some taxi drivers tried to talk me into going with them, and then a private car owner tried too. I told this guy that if he'll have a full car for 5 euros per person I'll come.
There was there a couple from Austria going to Ulcini too, so I suggested them to go together. The driver got another local guy to fill his car and we were on our way just as the bus arrived and about half an hour before it left.

In Ulcini I went strait to the bus station and took the bus to Podgorica. Prices of accommodation there were too high, so I had seen the old quarter, town centre and the river and took the bas to Bar, because bus to Budva was much later.

I got a nice room there, had an interesting conversation with a local lady who's living in Switzerland and in the morning took a bus to Tivat on my way to Kotor.

I had bad luck that turned good luck after all. I missed the only bus to Crna Gora by ten or fifteen minutes, but in less than two hours a nice guy from Ulcini, Crna Gora gave me a lift all the way down to his town, close to the Albanian border.
This guy, Samir, is Muslim of Albanian origin like the majority in town.
He works in Frankfurt, Germany. To show my appreciation I paid the ferry fare (4 Euro) at Kotor bay, but when I bought water he didn't let me pay.
Parts of Ulcini are ruined or neglected, some Israelis would say 'look like Gaza', but they build new houses, many of them as tourist's accommodations. I got a nice room just 10 min. walking down to the wonderful sea shore (but hard 15 min. climb back).
The water was too cold for me so I didn't swim, only dipped my feet in the sea.