THE END OF THE WALK
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| The long beach leading to Albania |
We enjoyed the sun which painted nature at its best. The air was pure and transparent. Clearly, locals were surprised to see us walking past their villages with backpacks. Some greeted us happily while others looked at us in disbelief. What are those devils doing here? We passed in front of a house guarded by a cat and a sunbathing dog. A toy tractor and a pair of shoes paid them company. All was safe.
Montenegro is using Cyrillic alphabet on many direction signs. This proved a bit challenging at junctions, but thanks to the GPS we managed to stay on the right path.
As we approached Lastva Grbaljska, there were lots of houses under construction. Commuters or second homes for the diaspora on the land of their fathers. What is sure is that the view on the valley and the mountains was great. Two concrete lions painted in white where guarding the entrance of a garden, sat two pillars against which a metal portico had been added and adorned with garlands of roses made of cloth. A wedding had been celebrated there not too long ago.
The small town has developed around the junction of a couple of roads at the bottom of the valley and seemed to be alive as a result.
We still had a few kilometres to go and a hill to climb before reaching Budva, which spread behind the hill along the shore. First, we saw the Budva aquapark, a succession of giant white spiraling tubes used as water slides from one pool to the next. This otherworldly structure contrasted with the karstic background of the coastal mountains. It looked like a contemporary scar on the slope of this Mediterranean landscape. Silence. The whole complex was locked. A giant sign blue with "AQUAPARK BUDVA" in white letters stood out against the hills in the background in the way Hollywood does in Los Angeles. Budva appeared finally by the seaside like a thick carpet of multi-storey houses growing tirelessly along the steep slope of the surrounding hills. We learned that Budva has been destroyed by an strong earthquake in 1979, which, as a matter of fact, had affected the whole region. That, it seems, has not cooled down the appetite of real estate developers to build ever more holiday homes on any available square meter because demand is strong. It takes two to tango! Budva has also caught the "Porto" fever. Plans for an exclusive Porto Budva, a luxury complex with shopping centre and residential units on the top ten floors, are on track, though some local residents appear to dislike the idea and demonstrate symbolically. Money will talk eventually and, besides, the size of Porto Budva is modest in comparison with the other Portos of the region.
We were still on the outskirts of town where rows of new buildings were being erected, standing out by their heights from the neighbouring houses. It was peak traffic by the time we reached the center of town, close to the harbour. The sun was shining intensely on the palm trees, planted along the main streets, which gave the area an air of Riviera. Budva looked richer than Herceg Novi. But like it, it had started small with a fortified town. Nowadays, Budva's old town is essentially commercial with shops, restaurants, hotels and bars. Most residents left it after the earthquake because everything had been damaged. At the time of the catastrophe the government said it could fund about 80% of the reconstruction cost while the remaining portion would have to be sourced through a 1% levy on workers' salaries between 1979 and 1989. Today we couldn't really see any trace of the earthquake but it certainly contributed to give the town a fresher look. We didn't spend too much time inside the old town because the streets were already cold and in the shadow, except the two churches, the Catholic and the Orthodox one, which were entirely restored. We left this former Venetian colony to the custody of the town's cats already positioned for their evening meal. We went through a small gate through the city wall opening on a small beach along the wall which had a few south facing beach cafés. One of them, the Konoba Tari Garden was sponsored by Aperol Spritz, the trendy Italian aperitif that is usually served with sparkling water to give it fizz and to dilute the Aperol. Apparently the habit hadn't filtered through the ears of the Konoba because the ones we ordered didn't contain any Spritz at all. Regardless, we drunk it happily, looking at the sea and the fortification wall, to celebrate without Spritz our three thousand five hundredth kilometres on foot since Hendaye. The absence of Spritz might have been a sign that the end of our walk was near. In fact, the weather was now more prone to be cold and rainy. But for now, we just enjoyed the warming rays of the sun that coloured in light orange the old town's stones. We weren't alone for a number of people had showed up to get away from the cold wind that blew from the North.
The next day we took it easy and walked to Mogren beach, hidden at the foot of a cliff. The sun was warm enough to go for a swim, our last one probably. On the way we had a look at the iconic bronze of a ballerina in arabesque position, perched on a rock in the middle of the water, standing on her left leg, holding the other leg, raised behind her back, by the foot with her right hand and completing the pause with her left arm pointing towards the sky. We had dinner in a restaurant, on the harbour front, in whose friendly waiter took the time to tell us about the local wines and about how recklessly construction was going on in Budva.
The following day, we left Budva under a blue sky that was striped by some fantastic clouds meant to expand under the impulse of the wind in the course of the morning. We walked along the shore promenade, having a look at the various styles of restaurant, bars, resorts. Some were of the latest see-and-be-seen glassed-front chic, others had lived and needed fresh paint on their shabby concrete walls. A short replica of the Eiffel tower stood next to a white construction crane. Winter and repair were in the air. Rare were the fishermen on the beach. Some determined ones had brought mini plastic seats and tables to wait comfortably, buried in their winter coats, that a fish would present itself to them. We walked through a tunnel cutting across the headland of Zavala to reach the next long beach that stretches between Zavala, Bečići and Ponta Nova. The tunnel was relatively recent and had been decorated with graffiti and drawings. One of them was a beef partitioned as a map of Montenegro's regions. The coast has been developed to a level that is probably unpleasant in summer but for now we had the beach virtually to ourselves. Most summer bars had closed and stored their furniture indoors or in sheds except one in the central part of the beach that had left some plastic long chairs out on the sand. One man, on his own, sat topless in swimming trunk on one of the chairs, visibly enjoying his laptop and the music played from a small speaker to keep him company.
Montenegro is using Cyrillic alphabet on many direction signs. This proved a bit challenging at junctions, but thanks to the GPS we managed to stay on the right path.
As we approached Lastva Grbaljska, there were lots of houses under construction. Commuters or second homes for the diaspora on the land of their fathers. What is sure is that the view on the valley and the mountains was great. Two concrete lions painted in white where guarding the entrance of a garden, sat two pillars against which a metal portico had been added and adorned with garlands of roses made of cloth. A wedding had been celebrated there not too long ago.
The small town has developed around the junction of a couple of roads at the bottom of the valley and seemed to be alive as a result.
We still had a few kilometres to go and a hill to climb before reaching Budva, which spread behind the hill along the shore. First, we saw the Budva aquapark, a succession of giant white spiraling tubes used as water slides from one pool to the next. This otherworldly structure contrasted with the karstic background of the coastal mountains. It looked like a contemporary scar on the slope of this Mediterranean landscape. Silence. The whole complex was locked. A giant sign blue with "AQUAPARK BUDVA" in white letters stood out against the hills in the background in the way Hollywood does in Los Angeles. Budva appeared finally by the seaside like a thick carpet of multi-storey houses growing tirelessly along the steep slope of the surrounding hills. We learned that Budva has been destroyed by an strong earthquake in 1979, which, as a matter of fact, had affected the whole region. That, it seems, has not cooled down the appetite of real estate developers to build ever more holiday homes on any available square meter because demand is strong. It takes two to tango! Budva has also caught the "Porto" fever. Plans for an exclusive Porto Budva, a luxury complex with shopping centre and residential units on the top ten floors, are on track, though some local residents appear to dislike the idea and demonstrate symbolically. Money will talk eventually and, besides, the size of Porto Budva is modest in comparison with the other Portos of the region.
We were still on the outskirts of town where rows of new buildings were being erected, standing out by their heights from the neighbouring houses. It was peak traffic by the time we reached the center of town, close to the harbour. The sun was shining intensely on the palm trees, planted along the main streets, which gave the area an air of Riviera. Budva looked richer than Herceg Novi. But like it, it had started small with a fortified town. Nowadays, Budva's old town is essentially commercial with shops, restaurants, hotels and bars. Most residents left it after the earthquake because everything had been damaged. At the time of the catastrophe the government said it could fund about 80% of the reconstruction cost while the remaining portion would have to be sourced through a 1% levy on workers' salaries between 1979 and 1989. Today we couldn't really see any trace of the earthquake but it certainly contributed to give the town a fresher look. We didn't spend too much time inside the old town because the streets were already cold and in the shadow, except the two churches, the Catholic and the Orthodox one, which were entirely restored. We left this former Venetian colony to the custody of the town's cats already positioned for their evening meal. We went through a small gate through the city wall opening on a small beach along the wall which had a few south facing beach cafés. One of them, the Konoba Tari Garden was sponsored by Aperol Spritz, the trendy Italian aperitif that is usually served with sparkling water to give it fizz and to dilute the Aperol. Apparently the habit hadn't filtered through the ears of the Konoba because the ones we ordered didn't contain any Spritz at all. Regardless, we drunk it happily, looking at the sea and the fortification wall, to celebrate without Spritz our three thousand five hundredth kilometres on foot since Hendaye. The absence of Spritz might have been a sign that the end of our walk was near. In fact, the weather was now more prone to be cold and rainy. But for now, we just enjoyed the warming rays of the sun that coloured in light orange the old town's stones. We weren't alone for a number of people had showed up to get away from the cold wind that blew from the North.
The next day we took it easy and walked to Mogren beach, hidden at the foot of a cliff. The sun was warm enough to go for a swim, our last one probably. On the way we had a look at the iconic bronze of a ballerina in arabesque position, perched on a rock in the middle of the water, standing on her left leg, holding the other leg, raised behind her back, by the foot with her right hand and completing the pause with her left arm pointing towards the sky. We had dinner in a restaurant, on the harbour front, in whose friendly waiter took the time to tell us about the local wines and about how recklessly construction was going on in Budva.
The following day, we left Budva under a blue sky that was striped by some fantastic clouds meant to expand under the impulse of the wind in the course of the morning. We walked along the shore promenade, having a look at the various styles of restaurant, bars, resorts. Some were of the latest see-and-be-seen glassed-front chic, others had lived and needed fresh paint on their shabby concrete walls. A short replica of the Eiffel tower stood next to a white construction crane. Winter and repair were in the air. Rare were the fishermen on the beach. Some determined ones had brought mini plastic seats and tables to wait comfortably, buried in their winter coats, that a fish would present itself to them. We walked through a tunnel cutting across the headland of Zavala to reach the next long beach that stretches between Zavala, Bečići and Ponta Nova. The tunnel was relatively recent and had been decorated with graffiti and drawings. One of them was a beef partitioned as a map of Montenegro's regions. The coast has been developed to a level that is probably unpleasant in summer but for now we had the beach virtually to ourselves. Most summer bars had closed and stored their furniture indoors or in sheds except one in the central part of the beach that had left some plastic long chairs out on the sand. One man, on his own, sat topless in swimming trunk on one of the chairs, visibly enjoying his laptop and the music played from a small speaker to keep him company.
Blue ducks on springs were calling for kids (adults possibly as well) to sit on them and be swayed. Not far from that children play area, in the shadow of trees, plastic flowers had been disposed of, they might be the remaining traces of a wedding. Lamp poles were taken advantage of for advertising purpose with stickers. Kamagra, a competitor to Viagra, seemed to be a hot topic at the beach, much more than the Magic-O hairdressing services.
Ponta nova was in the south corner of the beach which was full of pigeons. We went through another tunnel to avoid climbing on the rocky cliff that marked the end of the beach. From there a road led to the village of Miločer, that had grown vertically for lack of space between the sea and the mountains in the way Monte Carlo has done. With just a few exceptions, the coast all the way down to Ulcinj was made of cliffs falling into the sea. Towns and villages have grown into the cracks created by water erosion in the rock. We ended up our walk in Sveti Stefan, a tiny peninsula that apparently used piracy as a way of living in the past centuries. It used that threat to negotiate protection from Venice in return for not attacking Venetian ships anymore. However, it was fully destroyed in the wars opposing the Turks and the Venetians in the 15 or 16th century. Venice accepted to fund the reconstruction into a proper fortified town to protect it from the Turks. It is now a luxury hotel.
She walked up the road from Sveti Stefan holding a leather bag in one hand and a large plastic bag in the other one. She walked slowly and looked at the cars coming on the main road to see if the driver could qualify to give her a lift to Petrovac, the next town down the coast, just a few kilometers away. It would have to be a female driver we concluded from watching who she was discreetly flagging. She was probably in her sixties and wore a curtain-like brown gathered skirt weighted with lace sewn on the lower part. She had heavy black leather shoes with moderate heels and a purple blouse with a sweater on top. The wind was strong and seriously cooling the yet warm November sun. Thick pitch-black hair framed her tanned face colourfully highlighted with a generous application of make-up. She moved towards the bus stop where we were seating, waiting for the bus to Ulcinj. There was no way for pedestrians between Sveti Stefan and Ulcinj, other than the highway, which was rather dangerous so we had resorted to go by bus. We greeted her. She was in a talkative mood and speaking the language of Montenegro only. Communication was therefore limited but with repeated efforts we managed to tell her that we were going to Ulcinj. Ulcinj? There is Petrovac, 5km, after Petrovac there is Sutomore 10km, then Bar 5km. Ulcinj 40 minutes from Petrovac. In Ulcinj, they drive very fast, 130km/h, she said with a movement of shoulders meaning that they were crazy down there in Ulcinj. Podgorica? Podgorica dobra (good). Don't go Ulcinj then Podgorica. For Podgorica you need to change buses in Sutomore. After her speech, she turned back to the road and lit an ultra thin cigarette. The bus came, she sat in the first row and entertained the bus driver all the way to Petrovac, her destination. The bus resumed its journey along the rugged coast. The golden cupolas of Bar's great mosque appeared in the middle of a tired-looking urban landscape, not far from the row of pine trees planted along the shore. Bar is a new town in the sense that it was built after the 1979 earthquake which left the old town, Stari Bar, in ruins. The cathedral appeared austere, against the light. The roadside was fairly unappealing between Bar and Ulcinj, increasingly littered with plastic bags and other packaging trash.
We entered Ulcinj from the back of the upper town where the bus station is located. That part of town is a collection of uninspiring concrete buildings with shops on the ground floor and flats on the upper floors. It is the last town before the Albanian border and has a large Muslim community. Thin white minarets with sharp green tops like a green-coloured pencils pointing towards the sky, punctuate the skyline. Our first impression was that the town was rather poor and not really appealing to tourists. But we changed our mind the next day while we walked along the shore to the longest sand beach of Montenegro at the end of which starts Albania. In the meantime we laughed at the name of some restaurants along the way to the center ( Chik'N Corner, Grand Restaurant,...). We had booked an apartment with a view on the old town and the sea. We stayed there two nights though the owner had told us that we could stay for free a couple of extra days if we wanted to because we were the closing guests of the season. We thanked him and considered it but the wind blew cold and we weren't sure what we would do in Ulcinj for that many days. We went to see the old town as the sun was declining. On the concrete platform that advances on the sea at the foot of the fortification wall, fishermen came by car and parked there watching the horizon and chatting. The sunset was spectacular with the last rays of the sun firing up a deep pink light on the old town and the carpet of thin clouds that covered the sky. It was as surreal as the call for prayer coming out of loudspeakers from the nearby mosques.The old town has partially been reconstructed but apart from its strategic location it didn't have such a great vibe. On the way to dinner, we stopped in a shop that discounted clothes and bought in two minutes padded jackets to fend off the cold. We had dinner at La Tavola a simple but friendly restaurant our host had recommended to us.
The next morning we did our closing walk of the journey. We had reflected that, firstly, the weather had become too cold and changing and, secondly, there weren't any known pedestrian route in Albania.
We walked along the coast past the various holiday clubs pressed, one after the other, against the cliff that has been fitted with concrete to create sunbathing platforms. The water was blue and inviting but at the same time hard to reach and kind of cool. We passed in front of a place that is famous for its underwater hot spring and which is normally reserved to women, except in winter when any person brave enough is allowed to swim there. The hillside path stopped into the sea where the hill ended on one side and on the other side formed a cliff at the foot of which a village had developed along a small river. A bridge over the river led to the long sand beach that stopped in Albania. The wind blew strong and cold, pushing waves of sand. The horizon was clear and dotted with empty wooden watch-towers that are used to monitor swimmers. We walked for a few kilometres on the sand and turned back frozen.
Lunch was waiting for us and so did the last part of our travels. We had planned to hop our way back through the capitals of ex-Yugoslavia. This time round, we wouldn't see Corfu, as we had initially dreamt of, because it would mean to walk for another five or six weeks should we find a practicable road. We weren't sad, rather content to have come such a long way. As a conclusion of this endurance trip, we gathered some KPIs that would surely be of interest to any sportsperson who is used to check a GPS after a run!
Ponta nova was in the south corner of the beach which was full of pigeons. We went through another tunnel to avoid climbing on the rocky cliff that marked the end of the beach. From there a road led to the village of Miločer, that had grown vertically for lack of space between the sea and the mountains in the way Monte Carlo has done. With just a few exceptions, the coast all the way down to Ulcinj was made of cliffs falling into the sea. Towns and villages have grown into the cracks created by water erosion in the rock. We ended up our walk in Sveti Stefan, a tiny peninsula that apparently used piracy as a way of living in the past centuries. It used that threat to negotiate protection from Venice in return for not attacking Venetian ships anymore. However, it was fully destroyed in the wars opposing the Turks and the Venetians in the 15 or 16th century. Venice accepted to fund the reconstruction into a proper fortified town to protect it from the Turks. It is now a luxury hotel.
She walked up the road from Sveti Stefan holding a leather bag in one hand and a large plastic bag in the other one. She walked slowly and looked at the cars coming on the main road to see if the driver could qualify to give her a lift to Petrovac, the next town down the coast, just a few kilometers away. It would have to be a female driver we concluded from watching who she was discreetly flagging. She was probably in her sixties and wore a curtain-like brown gathered skirt weighted with lace sewn on the lower part. She had heavy black leather shoes with moderate heels and a purple blouse with a sweater on top. The wind was strong and seriously cooling the yet warm November sun. Thick pitch-black hair framed her tanned face colourfully highlighted with a generous application of make-up. She moved towards the bus stop where we were seating, waiting for the bus to Ulcinj. There was no way for pedestrians between Sveti Stefan and Ulcinj, other than the highway, which was rather dangerous so we had resorted to go by bus. We greeted her. She was in a talkative mood and speaking the language of Montenegro only. Communication was therefore limited but with repeated efforts we managed to tell her that we were going to Ulcinj. Ulcinj? There is Petrovac, 5km, after Petrovac there is Sutomore 10km, then Bar 5km. Ulcinj 40 minutes from Petrovac. In Ulcinj, they drive very fast, 130km/h, she said with a movement of shoulders meaning that they were crazy down there in Ulcinj. Podgorica? Podgorica dobra (good). Don't go Ulcinj then Podgorica. For Podgorica you need to change buses in Sutomore. After her speech, she turned back to the road and lit an ultra thin cigarette. The bus came, she sat in the first row and entertained the bus driver all the way to Petrovac, her destination. The bus resumed its journey along the rugged coast. The golden cupolas of Bar's great mosque appeared in the middle of a tired-looking urban landscape, not far from the row of pine trees planted along the shore. Bar is a new town in the sense that it was built after the 1979 earthquake which left the old town, Stari Bar, in ruins. The cathedral appeared austere, against the light. The roadside was fairly unappealing between Bar and Ulcinj, increasingly littered with plastic bags and other packaging trash.
We entered Ulcinj from the back of the upper town where the bus station is located. That part of town is a collection of uninspiring concrete buildings with shops on the ground floor and flats on the upper floors. It is the last town before the Albanian border and has a large Muslim community. Thin white minarets with sharp green tops like a green-coloured pencils pointing towards the sky, punctuate the skyline. Our first impression was that the town was rather poor and not really appealing to tourists. But we changed our mind the next day while we walked along the shore to the longest sand beach of Montenegro at the end of which starts Albania. In the meantime we laughed at the name of some restaurants along the way to the center ( Chik'N Corner, Grand Restaurant,...). We had booked an apartment with a view on the old town and the sea. We stayed there two nights though the owner had told us that we could stay for free a couple of extra days if we wanted to because we were the closing guests of the season. We thanked him and considered it but the wind blew cold and we weren't sure what we would do in Ulcinj for that many days. We went to see the old town as the sun was declining. On the concrete platform that advances on the sea at the foot of the fortification wall, fishermen came by car and parked there watching the horizon and chatting. The sunset was spectacular with the last rays of the sun firing up a deep pink light on the old town and the carpet of thin clouds that covered the sky. It was as surreal as the call for prayer coming out of loudspeakers from the nearby mosques.The old town has partially been reconstructed but apart from its strategic location it didn't have such a great vibe. On the way to dinner, we stopped in a shop that discounted clothes and bought in two minutes padded jackets to fend off the cold. We had dinner at La Tavola a simple but friendly restaurant our host had recommended to us.
The next morning we did our closing walk of the journey. We had reflected that, firstly, the weather had become too cold and changing and, secondly, there weren't any known pedestrian route in Albania.
We walked along the coast past the various holiday clubs pressed, one after the other, against the cliff that has been fitted with concrete to create sunbathing platforms. The water was blue and inviting but at the same time hard to reach and kind of cool. We passed in front of a place that is famous for its underwater hot spring and which is normally reserved to women, except in winter when any person brave enough is allowed to swim there. The hillside path stopped into the sea where the hill ended on one side and on the other side formed a cliff at the foot of which a village had developed along a small river. A bridge over the river led to the long sand beach that stopped in Albania. The wind blew strong and cold, pushing waves of sand. The horizon was clear and dotted with empty wooden watch-towers that are used to monitor swimmers. We walked for a few kilometres on the sand and turned back frozen.
Lunch was waiting for us and so did the last part of our travels. We had planned to hop our way back through the capitals of ex-Yugoslavia. This time round, we wouldn't see Corfu, as we had initially dreamt of, because it would mean to walk for another five or six weeks should we find a practicable road. We weren't sad, rather content to have come such a long way. As a conclusion of this endurance trip, we gathered some KPIs that would surely be of interest to any sportsperson who is used to check a GPS after a run!
Trip KPIs
total distance walked: 3534 km
positive elevation climbed: 105 000 meters
unaccounted kilometres estimate: many
days without walking: 40
days since departure: 210
average daily water consumption (liters)> 2.5
average daily red wine consumption (liters): >=0.25
number of different beds > 170
number of picnics: 200
countries visited: 7 - France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro
positive elevation climbed: 105 000 meters
unaccounted kilometres estimate: many
days without walking: 40
days since departure: 210
average daily water consumption (liters)> 2.5
average daily red wine consumption (liters): >=0.25
number of different beds > 170
number of picnics: 200
countries visited: 7 - France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro
images:
1/ The long beach leading to Albania
1/ The long beach leading to Albania
2/ Budva, the old town's beach
3/ Budva reconstructed
4/ Sveti Stefan
5/ Ulcinj
3/ Budva reconstructed
4/ Sveti Stefan
5/ Ulcinj
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| Budva, the old town's beach |
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| Budva reconstructed |
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| Sveti Stefan |
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| Ulcinj |
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