With short stages through Montenegro

Meanwhile, we are sitting at 27 degrees in northern Croatia. We didn't have much time to write. Looking back, it seems like an eternity ago when we drove from Albania to Montenegro in pouring rain wearing long clothes.

In Albania, we stayed on the farm for four whole days, eventually fleeing from the rain from the tent to the rooms, watching the kittens grow older, and spending very pleasant evenings with cyclists from all over Europe. But eventually, the rain and cold couldn't deter us anymore, so we packed our bikes, said goodbye, and cycled 57km with an elevation gain of 640 meters to our first campsite in Montenegro.

The landscape remained rocky and mountainous, and the villages still resembled the Albanian ones with their churches and mosques. Our campsite was beautifully located with a view of the Mediterranean Sea and a small kitchen under olive trees. For dinner, we had homemade wine and enjoyed the setting sun before continuing along the coast to more Christianized Montenegro the next day. Along the coast, although we would have liked to see the mountains inland. But the clouds hung there, some routes were still closed due to snow, and honestly, we were getting tired of the bad weather.

So we cycled along a beautiful rocky coast with small beach bays and quite a bit of wave action for 33km and an elevation gain of 580 meters to a campsite just beyond Budva, the supposed Ballermann of Montenegro. This became evident from the mixture of rarely natural beaches, developed beach promenades, and hotel beaches that rather disturbed the solitary Adriatic experience. In Montenegro, the more developed infrastructure, unlike Albania, became our undoing - heavily trafficked roads and impassable, unlit tunnels, which were a mental obstacle every time. In the end, we could still enjoy the beach and the sea in the evenings, albeit with gradually increasing campsite prices.

Since the Montenegrin coast is quite short and very mountainous, we also cycled a shorter distance the next day (49km and 880 meters of elevation gain) with many breaks to the Bay of Kotor, which is beautifully picturesque between high mountains. After each steep uphill climb, we enjoyed the long descents, beautiful views of the bay and the small, partly medieval town of Kotor, as well as a cruise ship of approximately the same size in the harbor. We spent the night at a campsite with a beautiful view of the bay and mountains in front and a very noisy road behind. While trucks drove through the tent at night, we gathered the strength to enter Croatia the next day through the mountains and over the EU external border.

Between the two borders, there is 600 meters of road that are not exactly assigned. A part of this earth that obviously does not belong to any country or is taxed, and probably would have been significantly cheaper than the following days in Croatia. But more on that later :)