Montenegro

There are two locally created apps that provides climbing topos. One for sport and one for bouldering. Available for free with a well-worth-it small donation requested.

We cross-referenced the app information with The Crag and a Montenegro Climbing Facebook group to try and get the ‘latest’ information.

Development is actively ongoing and chatting to climbers we met was extremely valuable – recommendations we received meant we visited some crags that we may have ‘given a miss’ due to patchy information.

Roads : The flipside of a 90% mountainous country is that Montenegro provided us with our squeeziest, switch-backiest routes of the trip.

The one road that I would warn against IF in a large vehicle was from Kotor to Tivat, taking the road on the East side of the little peninsula (going against the google recommendation) – it was super scenic on the water’s edge and I highly recommend if you’re in a small vehicle. But in a 7m motorhome we felt lucky we made it all the way round!

Other roads like the Serpentine from Kotor up to Lovcen National Park and the roads through Durmitor National Park require some gumption but are very doable and worth-it for the incredible views.

It is also worth mentioning that despite some squeezy manoeuvres that required painstakingly inching forwards past ongoing vehicles, we never experienced any stress from other drivers which makes a huge difference.

Camping park4night was (as always) a great resource and we mixed it up between free camping and private sites to access services. Some of the spots we stayed felt very ‘function over fancy’ but there were some absolute gems in there too – look for park4night spots that not only have high ratings but high stay-rates and recent comments.

• Bay of Kotor: scenic and all the drama with pointy peaks pushing right up to the waters edge:
  • Stop for mussels and seafood at one of the little family waterfront shacks on the bay
  • Kotor itself felt touristy but an atmospheric old town you can wander and get lost in.
• Njegos Mausoleum: a tourist hotspot but it IS worth it – not sure you could pick a more impressive spot for a mausoleum and also a very distinct architectural style… Information when there is a bit scant, so it is worth reading up online to understand the history.
• Cetinje: the old royal capital, we might not even have stopped here if it hadn’t been for a rainy day – however it was a really lovely place to explore. It has historical buildings, museums and a monastery for a good dose of history and culture. Our favourite was actually a little modern art gallery: Galerija Miodrag Dado Đurić which had a really thought-provoking exhibition from artists from the region.
• Durmitor National Park: the absolute crown jewel of our time in Montenegro – we waited for a dry weather window and made a beeline to the park. We were amply rewarded with clear summits, beautiful sunsets and starry night skies:
  • Finding information about the trails was not always easy – we cobbled things together using mainly AllTrails.
  • Our absolute highlight was a hike to the summit of Prutas (it did involve a bit of hairy scrambling on the approach).
  • We also explored some of the more popular trails: including those starting from the Sedlo mountain pass and the Black Lake
• Ostrog Monastery: A useful and worth-it stop on the way up/from to Durmitor. We opted out of driving our big vehicle up the final switchbacks – this was probably wise but it was also a really nice walk up (and traditionally done as a pilgrimage in bare feet).
• Podgorica: We stopped for longer here than planned mainly due to wet weather. A few galleries/museums to explore but our surprise highlight was eating at the one and only Indian restaurant Masala Art. Our waiter told us that there is one other Masala Art in Shanghai and he’s pretty sure that the team associated with the restaurant are the only Indians in Montenegro – well they’re doing an amazing job serving up fantastic Indian cuisine.
• Perazica Do: the Montenegro coastline probably had more to offer to us than what we explored as we ended up missing a chunk and chasing the sun into Albania. But Perazica Do is well worth a mention. A huge atmospheric abandoned hotel, possible to explore and laced with artful graffiti. A beautiful beach, peppered with boulders to climb (more on that in the crag guide). It felt like we were in the Inception movie scene where giant abandoned building collapse into the sea… in fact a local band was filming their music video when we arrived. A surreal little slice of free-camping paradise.