The bus times from the helpful tourist information office showed that the first bus out of Žabljak was just before lunchtime, but there was a bus poster on the wall which suggested that there was an earlier one. We didn’t want to rely on what might be an outdated poster, so Jonathan went out to investigate and there was a bus that was ready to take us to Nikšić.
This news meant that we didn’t have to faff about all morning wondering what to do and for €8 each we could leave immediately which would give us more time in Nikšić. We thought the red bus would be taking us, so naturally I photographed the wrong vehicle. It is actually the white one behind it, for anyone requiring accurate visual information.
It was comfortable on board and there was plenty of space. The modest number of passengers also suggested that the timetable’s existence was not widely known, which perhaps explained why the service had remained so comfortably spacious.
There were nice views along the journey, although I had started to think that I had likely seen enough Montenegrin mountains after spending so much time on buses and trains getting around the country. Rather more sadly, I started to see more fires.
The smoke got worse as we went on and this time I didn’t see any helicopters putting the fires out.
And safely in Nikšić, the second city of Montenegro. I had been following the route of the bus and when the driver stopped the bus I was ready to jump out and I thought that I’d better alert Jonathan to get out as well as that seemed kind.
There’s a tourist information office at Žabljak which I found to be one of the more terrifying locations that I’ve visited, which isn’t really the vibe that I’d expect from such a service. This is their bench outside, with warnings not to eat or drink there, nor indeed could you sit there if you were waiting for a bus.
My favourite rule is that there are a maximum of two people allowed in the tourist information office at once, a ludicrous rule as it’s not quite clear what happens if it’s a family with two adults and two children. And also, don’t be taking your cat inside.
Here are some more detailed rules for those who just read the summary rules.
Jonathan decided to go in to find out some information about bus times, but they were clear that these times were printed out on a piece of paper in the window so he wasn’t in there for long. He had gone in as there was conflicting information and it transpired that the bus information provided by the tourist information was wrong.
I was amused at the review online which included a photo of the rules and noted:
“Customs control at the airport is easier to get through than getting in the tourist office. There are more rules for entering this place, than there are traffic laws in Montenegro.”
They didn’t agree, responding:
“Dear guests. Unfortunately every office has certain rules. The ones we posted are something what we had experienced before. We don’t see anything what is unusual. You probably saw that office is very tiny and we can’t have to much people inside. Cause we won’t be able to provide good service for our customers. Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate it.”
A review from last week about the bus times:
“We went there to ask about the bus schedules, and they told us that the schedules were posted on the door. However, the information is not up to date! We woke up at 5 a.m. to catch the 6:30 a.m. bus to Podgorica but the bus never showed up! So don’t rely on the schedules posted there. Call the bus companies directly to make sure the buses are actually running.”
Sub-optimal. And a review from just two hours ago:
“If you’re expecting a friendly and welcoming approach, this may not be the right place for you. We came in with a few simple questions about the park, but the lady there seemed visibly annoyed that we were asking questions. Unfortunately, her attitude made the experience feel quite unwelcoming.”
I have to say, it felt sub-optimal as the whole welcome was pretty odd with the passive aggressive signage.
“We were greeted with toilet spray, and I assure you we were clean and didn’t smell at all. The second woman left immediately when we entered and came back as soon as we left. So why do they work in tourism?? We wonder!! I advise you to go, but just to annoy them 😅 You’ll be warned and you can take precautions. Good luck.”
These pesky dogs spent approximately eight hours barking at one another, occasionally moving towards something resembling aggression before apparently remembering that they were friends. It was an impressively sustained disagreement given that none of them appeared to have any particular objective. When I download all the videos from this trip, I’ll upload some footage of the incessant barking so that readers can enjoy several seconds of the experience which accompanied us for most of the evening.
Having exhausted every available point of disagreement, they eventually decided to remain together for a little nap. They were really quite sweet and looked almost angelic, although this assessment might have been more generous if they had not spent the previous eight hours operating as Žabljak’s least necessary emergency siren.
For our second day of visiting the Durmitor National Park, we were looking for a walking route that would take around five hours, which wasn’t technically difficult and which would give us decent views from the mountains. Walking to the Ćurevac Viewpoint from Žabljak seemed to be the sensible option and wasn’t overly onerous. We’re not all David Morgan, regarding every mountain as an exciting challenge. Some of us prefer little hills which are ideally quite flat.
Quite why it has been decided to put a scrapyard in this area is a little difficult to understand. The other side of the road contained former fridges, washing machines and other assorted junk. It was an unexpectedly industrial opening to a walk leading towards one of Montenegro’s finest viewpoints.
We were fortunate with the weather, it was warm but it wasn’t overly hot and there was something of a breeze.
There was a lot of woodland walking, which is some of my favourite, and I appointed myself head of navigation.
The route was easy to follow from a map, but it was also pretty evident from the ground as well. We didn’t see many people on the trail and we had occasional little stops to rest.
Most of the route could have been managed by my friend Richard, albeit with a steady dialogue of complaints and collapses. As we got further in the whole arrangement started to become steeper and a little more challenging. I remained, as my loyal blog readers would expect, very brave.
Looking back over where we had walked, and I had started to complain, we were rewarded with some rather lovely views.
One more little burst of energy was needed to get to the viewpoint.
And these views made it worth it.
I didn’t go too near to the edge as I’m scared of sheer drops, but I perched myself on a rock to have a look over the valley.
The Tara River at the bottom of the valley.
Jonathan had acquired a stick through mountaineering expertise, while I acquired it through the more traditional method of taking it from him. I was nervous about some of the more challenging bits of descent and he was very agreeable.
My reward on the walk back to the start.
This was a really lovely walk, it wasn’t too onerous, I didn’t complain for more than five minutes at any one time and the views were spectacular. I think that there’s a car park near the top as there were a fair number of people at that section, but there were very few people on the rest of the route. And congratulations to Jonathan for listening to my “this is too slippery” on several occasions.
This was an interesting supermarket in Žabljak, it had a slightly strange layout where the bulk of items were in the upstairs rear part of the building and the only way to them was for customers to try and fight their way to them through queueing customers. The prices were a little higher than usual, likely the reality of being in a tourist town, but they weren’t unreasonable.
My purchases lined up ready for payment. This was odd, the supermarket hadn’t got any dividers between customers and so there were numerous errors in the short time that I was there where people were charged for other people’s purchases. They also had a policy where loose fruit had to be scanned and labelled upstairs and customers were repeatedly dispatched upstairs with their fruit, like contestants who had misunderstood the opening round of a particularly low budget game show. Anyone paying by card then had to walk back along the queue to reach a card machine which appeared to have been placed in the least logical location available.
Service was a little confrontational, Jonathan tried to pay with a note (admittedly a €50) and the response was “we are not a bank” which felt a slightly sub-optimal way to speak to a customer, whether he was annoying or not. A simpler “do you have anything smaller” would have perhaps been a little kinder. I think it’s fair to say that the staff members here seemed worn out and the policies of the supermarket were perhaps driving them to distraction. There were long queues, no self-service tills and a supermarket layout that made little sense. The system appeared to rely on every customer already knowing rules which were explained only after they had broken them.
However, it meant that I could create a little blog post out of it, so there are always positives.
After an afternoon of walking, we went to Restoran Podgora for our evening meal. It looked bright and welcoming, although obtaining a table involved standing near the entrance while several members of staff demonstrated that they were aware of us without committing themselves to any particular course of action which felt slightly sub-optimal.
However, we were seated at one of the last available tables and timed our visit well. It seems to be one of the more popular dining options in the town and it has a traditional menu which is tempting for visitors. The menu was quite extensive and although focused on meat dishes, there were some fish and vegetarian options to add to the mix.
My first beer was the Nikšićko Tamno from Trebjesa Brewery, a malty, sweet and inoffensive dark lager.
Jonathan ordered a kilogram of meat and he nearly managed to get through it all.
One of the house specialities was a plate of homemade sausages. The sausages were juicy and perhaps slightly pinker than I would have liked, although they had a depth of flavour to them. The chips were a little dry and the whole arrangement probably needed more than a slice of tomato and a few lumps of onion, but the meal was only about £7 and it was filling enough.
My second drink was back to the Nikšićko Svijetlo Pivo from the same brewery, malty, clean and a little different. The service became more attentive as time went on and ended up being efficient. This might not have been the most refined meal on the entire trip, but it was enjoyable and it had a cosy atmosphere.
It was all rather agreeable as a meal and we had a table at the front of the restaurant which meant that people-watching was made much easier. There was something of a tourist group, some Brits and a group of Australians who were most excited about just how cheap all of the food was. The restaurant was busy earlier on, likely explaining the perhaps slightly confused service, but things got much calmer as matters quietened down. And Jonathan did well to get through so much meat piled up on a plate, especially as he worked his way through a salad as well. All really rather lovely.
Jonathan and I had included Durmitor National Park in our itinerary because we wanted to spend a couple of days walking through its dramatic section of the Dinaric Alps. The guidebooks promised limestone peaks, alpine meadows, coniferous forests, glacial lakes and deep river valleys packed into a relatively compact landscape. We were aware that the park’s most imposing feature is the Tara River Canyon, which runs for more than 60 kilometres and contains some of Europe’s deepest gorges, so we wanted to see that.
I would note that there are brown bears in the area, but Jonathan, the experienced mountain walker, had promised me that we were unlikely to come across one. If a bear did appear, my plan was to remind Jonathan that wildlife management fell naturally within his expanding portfolio of responsibilities anyway. I’m pleased to say that we didn’t encounter a European wildcat, a grey wolf or anything larger than a shrew. There are Balkan whip snakes and nose-horned vipers in the area, the latter being the most venomous snake in Europe, but we didn’t encounter any of those either. I remain unimpressed that the park authorities allow all these creatures to wander around unsupervised, but Montenegro appears to have adopted a relatively relaxed approach to reptile management.
Durmitor became a national park in 1952, although Black Lake had received protection as early as 1907. The Tara River Basin was recognised as a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1976 and the national park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, with its listed boundaries expanded in 2005. Admission cost €5 each, which I regarded as slightly sub-optimal when the mountains had already been there for millions of years. However, the money helps to protect and maintain the park, so I handed it over with reasonable grace and chose to regard myself as a minor environmental benefactor.
We were doing two walks during our visit, the one to Black Lake that I’ve posted about, and another sedate walk to the top of a mountain that was even higher than Beeston Bump Mountain in North Norfolk. More of that second walk coming soon.
We had arrived in Žabljak in good time, which left us enough of the afternoon for a walk around the area.
I was excited to see some wildlife early on, this is a common shrew.
We were walking to Black Lake, known locally as Crno jezero, which is the largest and best known of the 18 glacial lakes scattered across Durmitor National Park. The lake was created by glaciers that once moved through the Durmitor, eroding its limestone landscape and leaving behind water-filled hollows when the ice retreated. It is now one of the park’s principal attractions, helped by the convenient fact that it is exceptionally beautiful and relatively easy to reach.
Black Lake consists of two adjoining glacial basins called Veliko jezero, or Big Lake, and Malo jezero, or Little Lake. They are connected by a narrow, shallow channel when water levels are high, but this can dry out during summer and leave two visibly separate lakes. Big Lake covers the larger surface area but reaches a maximum depth of only around 24.5 metres, while Little Lake descends to approximately 49 metres and consequently contains more water.
One of Black Lake’s more unusual features is that water can flow through the connecting channel in either direction. During periods of high water, particularly following the spring snowmelt, it generally passes from Little Lake into Big Lake. As levels fall later in the year, the flow can reverse and carry water back towards Little Lake.
We went for a pleasant meander around the lake and the terrain was easy-going.
The path was relatively clear until just after here.
There’s Jonathan, an experienced mountain walker, leading the way on the trail.
We headed up into a forested area. Well, Jonathan did, but I came back as it was too steep and I’m not Alex Honnold.
I found another route which wasn’t quite so steep.
This came out at the Little Lake.
I thought that this really was quite beautiful.
I was so excited at all this natural beauty that I agreed to appear in a photograph. There are limits to my tolerance of such frivolity, so readers should not interpret this as the beginning of a lifestyle-influencer phase.
Just as I was having a lovely time, we reached this sign. I considered the words “dangerous trail!” to be highly sub-optimal, especially as we were so far around the lake that it would have taken some considerable time to get back.
I like woodland walking, but it seemed to be quite moderate in difficulty to me, it was the sort of route that even Richard could do.
There were some lovely views of the lake.
This transpired to be the dangerous bit and I can’t say that I was surprised and delighted by this little arrangement, but I was very brave. As to whether Richard could do this, which is one of the internationally recognised grading schemes, I’d suggest not.
There weren’t any sheer drops, so it was fine and I didn’t need to complain. Much. I’d add that I was pleased to see the “dangerous path!” sign the other way, so that it meant that the worst was over.
And a bridge leading us back to the start of the walk and it’s one of the most beautiful trails that I’ve done.
Our plan for the next few days was to head for Durmitor National Park in north-west Montenegro and so we headed to the bus station in the morning. We were pleased to discover that there was a bus heading there relatively soon meaning that we didn’t have to wait about in Podgorica. Jonathan acquired the tickets because he is responsible for transportational matters, while I hold the equally demanding portfolio covering snacks, complaints and standing nearby.
The bus was a direct service and there’s an extra charge for anyone who wants to put luggage into the back, but, fortunately, Jonathan and I travel light so we didn’t have to deal with that little problem.
We selected seats at the back beside the emergency exit, which provided some welcome additional legroom. This apparently left us responsible for evacuating everyone if something went wrong, despite no-one carrying out even the most basic assessment of our strength, courage or general suitability.
Crossing the Morača River out of Podgorica.
There were beautiful views once again as we crossed the country, it’s certainly got some rather lovely landscapes to look at. The roads were winding but still quite wide, so it didn’t feel like we were on some dangerous escapade in the hills.
More troubling was the number of areas affected by fire. The contrast between the scorched ground and the otherwise beautiful landscape was particularly stark.
There were several patches of quite burnt areas along the route where there had been previous fires.
The air was smoky for stretches of the journey which felt a little sub-optimal.
It was all rather sobering if I’m being honest. Individual fires can I imagine have numerous causes, but increasingly hot and dry conditions are raising the risk and potential severity of wildfires across southern Europe. It seems likely that scenes such as these will become more common rather than less.
We also saw a helicopter collecting and dropping water on one of the fires. It provided some reassurance that the situation was being actively tackled, although the scale of the surrounding damage demonstrated the difficulty of bringing such fires under control.
Approaching the town of Žabljak and we were ready for a couple of days of walking in the area. The bus journey had cost around £10 each and it took around three hours, meaning that we arrived in the early afternoon and the first thing that I realised that although it was hot, it wasn’t insanely hot.
