Podgorica Walkabout

Today I crossed the border leaving Albania and entering Montenegro to arrive in Podgorica its capital city.

When I visited Montenegro previously I stayed in Tivat and visited the delightful coastal treasures of Kotor and Budva.

As I had not been to Podgorica and it was en-route to Sarajevo my final destination I decided to stay here for one night.

Upon arrival at the main bus station I headed for Independence Square which is a 20 minute walk from the bus station. It was a little underwhelming. The centre piece seemed to be the Hard Rock Cafe.

Independence Square is in the Nova Varos part of the city and I continued walking towards the river, past Government buildings.

I soon came to the Moraca River where I crossed over the Moscow Bridge (a footbridge) as I headed towards Millenium Bridge from the other side of the river. These two bridges are a few minutes’ walk apart and here I found a bench in a shady park area to snack on the savoury pastries I had left over from breakfast that morning.

The Millenium Bridge was opened in July 2005 and spans the small but incredibly clear and turquoise River Moraca.

Having crossed back over the Millenium Bridge I made my way towards the Bokeska pedestrian area and the first thing I saw was a busy Scottish pub!

I stopped for an espresso in Hacienda La Paz, a restaurant which serves food and drinks with a Latin American theme. I was tempted to go for a tequila and something but no… I saved the alcohol for later 🙂

I sat outside in their shady area and logged onto their wifi. For such a short time in Montenegro I relied on wifi rather than getting an eSIM. I didn’t have access to data either which has an excessive charge from my mobile provider in Albania, Montenegro and also in Boznia & Herzegovina. Thankfully I had previously downloaded Google Maps for each of the areas I would be visiting which made navigation much easier.

I decided to continue walking and headed back towards the river.

I came across the historic Old Ribnica Bridge which crosses the mouth of the River Ribnica as it joins the River Moraca.

Next to the Old Ribnica River Bridge are the remains of the Fortress Depedogen, the former Ottoman fortress which was built in 1474.

I walked through a small park towards the King Nikola monument.

The King Nikola monument was dedicated to King Nikola Petrovik, a former king of Montenegro.

Street art

Not sure what else to do I went in search of street art!

Having wandered around the tiny city centre (which took an hour of slow walking) and found a bit of street art I spent some time in the afternoon sitting in the cool and trendy Itaka bar complete with its own selection of colourful painted murals.

In the sun, a cold and refreshing local dark Montenegro beer was in order!

This bar is pretty unique as its located underneath a road bridge! I must say I felt a bit old in there with the young hipsters 😂

From Itaka bar I made my way past a shopping centre to my accommodation to let myself in and drop my bag off. This was in a residential area but more on that later. From there, still not sure what to do and by now the sky had clouded over, I walked for 35 minutes towards the Novi Grad district.

I found myself in another residential area and starting to feel a little bored I found a bakery for another coffee. It was only 4 pm and seemed too early for dinner!

But I did find a wow factor! I had previously walked past the Orthodox Temple of Christ’s Resurrection dismissing it as another religious building. Until, while in the bakery searching for ‘things to do in Podgorica’ I discovered the rave reviews for this ‘do not miss’ place.

The inside was incredible! While I am not a religious person I can appreciate a spectacular piece of architecture.

This Byzantine style structure was opened in 2013 having taken 20 years to build.

Dinner

Finally time for dinner. Tonight, on the way back to my apartment I went to Konoba Lanterna as it had excellent reviews as somewhere to have traditional food.

I had a vegetarian pasta made with peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and tomato and this was delicious. At €9.50 this was a bit more expensive than Albania but still fairly low cost when compared with UK prices.

And yep, the currency for Montenegro is Euros so no need to change anything as I had enough with me… in fact I usually ensure I have a stash of Euros when travelling anywhere abroad.

Accommodation

This time I stayed in ‘Dan’s apartment’ a studio flat I had previously found and booked on AirBnB. As mentioned it was located in a residential block of flats which was a 20 minute walk (past the shopping centre) from the city centre.

This apartment was clean and functional and fine for just one night.

Getting to Podgorica

The previous week I had booked a bus transfer via The BusTicket4me website. This online company booked me a seat on the Shkoder – Podgorica route with MS Tours for just €10.

I had to download and print my ticket in advance. Shkoder didn’t seem to have a dedicated bus station so I wasn’t entirely sure where it would depart from. 

I found the international bus stop in Shkoder was located near the tourist information office outside Rozafa Hotel.

I got there early and as I walked along near the bus stop I saw a rep from MS Tours who asked if I was going to Montenegro! So it was all quite easy.

I also made a friend! I met a lovely Italian lady who was about my age. We got on well and she too was booked for the same journey so she travelled with me on the mini bus to Podgorica.

The journey was scenic with mountains and flower filled meadows to the right and distant views of Shkodra Lake to the left.

It was quick and unlike the previous day there were no traffic hold ups. We even went straight through the border, exiting Albania and being stamped into Montenegro with no queues. Overall the journey time between Shkoder and Podgorica was 1.5 hours and this included the border stop.

Summary

I managed to fill an afternoon in Podgorica and was thankful again to have had warm weather and 24 degrees which has been the case for the last 3 days, since this little trip started in Tirana.

I’m looking forward to Sarajevo tomorrow 🙂