One particularly cloudy day we headed out to Budva which is a beachside town about 30 minutes away from Kotor in Montenegro. We left the rain and gloomy weather and meandered through the winding roads until we went through a long tunnel (about 1.6km) and when we came out the other side we had landed in lovely sunshine. It was a little bit odd and a kind of like a scene in the Wizard of Oz! As you can imagine we were all very happy if not quite perplexed!
10 minutes later we hit the ocean and confronted with Montenegro’s spectacular coastline. It really is quite amazing. Everywhere you look it is beautiful. We drove along the coast and winded our way down into the little beachside party town. To be honest it didn’t get a magical write up in our Lonely Planet and in a way I can kind of see why, however we had a good time.
Walking the Budva Riviera
There were lots of large tourist-filled resorts, historic buildings and apparently they had a lovely old town (Stari Grad) too, however we were a bit travelled out and just wanted an easy going afternoon on the water. We found the centre of the beach area, parked and got out to explore. There were loads of little hawker shops and lots of things for sale. The boys found some play equipment and had a great time running around in the sun!
Naturally as it was late afternoon we found a little restaurant that sold cold beer and champagne with a park next door and settled in for a bit! The beach was very pretty as it was kind of like a harbour and either side of the bay were large picturesque mountains.
I bought a pair of sunglasses from a little shop and the kids had an icecream. Everwhere we were we were less than 50 m from the water and we could enjoy the beautiful view!
Eating out in Budva
The people in the restaurant we had chosen were quite rude so we thought we might try another place. This was quite common in Montenegro, and I am still baffled as to how a country that is flanked by Bosnia and Albania somehow didn’t inherit any kindness and warmth from their neighbours! It is known as the Monaco of the Adriatic and it appears they think they have well and truly earnt their title.
Disclaimer: It is beautiful! Like Europe-on-crack kind of beautiful.
We found another lovely little restaurant which wasn’t hard as the boardwalk was filled with loads of places to visit and had a wonderful dinner. They even served the kids spaghetti bolognaise which was music to my ears! Our kids were happy and so were we! We then came across a little fun park where the kids could jump on trampolines and play on Fair ground rides. They had fun and we got to watch the sun set!
We drove back to Kotor as the sun went down and marvelled at how our lives had turned out. If you had told me we would be here even a year ago I mightn’t have believed you!
p.s. I would definitely choose to stay in Kotor over Budva, however it is well worth the visit as a day trip!
