R&R in Montenegro
Let’s take it easy...
1st - 4th May | 2022
This morning Steffi felt much better, hallelujah! And the sun was still shining, still! Wesko came with his famous and delicious pancakes for breakfast. Could you ask for a better start to the day?
Once all packed away, today we went by road to Savnik ;-) What a lovely road over the mountains (1400m altitude), nice and twisty! In Savnik we topped up the petrol and had a cafe at the hotel Djokovic (are they familiar with the tennis player?!?) We sat outside in the sun - so far about the weather forecast and the rain! As it was already lunchtime, we decided to have lunch here.
Refreshed we did the last 40km to Niksic to our apartment at the lake. A lovely quiet place! Our apartment was super spacious and we could choose between various beds within our apartment ... maybe for each night another bed ...?
Later that day, Ivan told us, that we even could service the bike already tomorrow. Wow, perfect! He send us directions through and we found the place of Jovan directly. Unfortunately, he was not really informed about what he was supposed to do as he did not have the oil filter and a different synthetic oil, but after consulting Roberto we agreed to go ahead with 10W60 synthetic oil, but I should do another one in about 7000km with an oil filter. That should be doable! Just a bit annoying the situation as we went to Magnus Moto in Podgorica to get the front sprocket and we easily could have bought the rest ... Ah well, at least I have got an oil exchange as that was due, especially with the offroad we have done.
Whilst Jovan was sorting out Schimmelchen, we tried to find a laundry, sewing, grocery shopping and hairdresser for James sorted. As it was a bank holiday (or maybe because 1st May was a Sunday), we only got the laundry sorted...., but we know now our way around Niksic ;-) So tomorrow we will give it another attempt for all the rest, after visiting Ostrog monastery. The rest of the day we were just lazy as it was non-stop raining.
The next morning, the sun was shining. After a good breakfast; they seem to like their fried eggs or omelettes here; we went 2-up on Schmimmelchen to Ostrog monastery. This is an amazing place as built into the straight mountain! Steffi followed the crowd into a little crypt, aside from the main building. She realised the people before her already kissed the wall... The next was being waved through the little low door gate into a pre-room and then from into the tiny main room. As soon as she stood straight she saw the two ladies in front of her kissing the hands of someone in an open casket. Steffi immediately went a step aside into a corner pretending to pray from a distance as she was not prepared for that! Even though googling it afterwards she still couldn’t find out, who it is ... On the way out, she noticed again the people kissing the wall...
Then it was time to light some candles. The people in the queue before her bought loads of candles and small bottles of holy water (?)... It must be a very popular place as on the way down a lot of traffic came up. We went early enough to enjoy the place!
Back to Niksic, we went first to the sewing lady, but she is still not working today! Great! Supermarkets closed and most shops today too! So nothing ticked off our list AGAIN! So tomorrow we will first go to Niksic getting hopefully all sorted before we carried on with our travel through Montenegro.
A new day and this time lucky! The sewing lady was there and as it is a little shopping centre Steffi got straight away a jeans that can be cut and used as a jodhpur patch on her jeans.
As we now had to wait for another 2 hours to get the trousers back, we were hanging around our bikes in front of that shopping centre. We got our grocery done, James his haircut and Steffi then her sides too :-)
Around lunchtime, we finally hit the road to Savnik, where we had lunch in the hotel again. After that, we rode up to Zabljak, where we visited the famous glacier lake Crno Jezero. From there we went over the mountains of Durmitor National Park, which was really beautiful with the trees and snow patches (in distance!). It was a lovely twisty road down a gorge, passing the beautiful Susicko Jerezo (lake).
On the way up we passed the village Nedanjo and when we passed the guesthouse we both had the same idea. We will stay here for the night in a little room with breakfast. A young german couple also stays here, so we chatted a bit about our journeys as they are for 4 months on the road in their little VW campervan.
As Steffi was pretty tired all day, we had an early night tonight. Let´s have a good night sleep and in the next blog we take you over to Bosnia-Herzegowina. We will tell you then what we have discovered by then ... Sleep well so far ;-)
Places | Cities:
Savnik, Niksic, Ostrog, Zabljak, Nedanjo
Driven km | Trip:
Total: 9955 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
Schimmelchen new front sprocket and oil exchange.
Health issues:
./.
Special thanks to:
Ivan Drobnjak, linesman of TET Montenegro, for helping us with everything we needed in Niksic and looking virtual after us all the time in Montenegro!
Jovan for looking after Schimmelchen in Niksic