Awww Montenegro

I fell in love with Montenegro. Maybe because of the beautiful mountains, the clear water, the old citadel towns, the wonderful people or maybe because they named a beer Nik Gold (their most popular beer). We stayed in Budva, a town just south of the Gulf of Kotor. When we arrived into town we were starving, so we headed to the boardwalk on the beach to look for a good place to eat. There were hundreds of restaurants, small shops and gelato places to stop at. We had fun eating our first meal together in the country I have heard so much about. Steves' parents (Nik's dad) were from Montenegro, so Nik fit right in with the locals. He knows very little Serbian, but enough to impress the people. Our hotel staff loved him and they would get so excited and smiley every time we came around.

That night we went out to explore the old citadel city. It is a wall lined city with streets as wide as Nik's arm span and cobblestone streets. People still live in the city and it is filled with cute shops and restaurants. Budva is known as being the young party city of Montenegro, so there were plenty of people dressed their best out on the town. It was fun people watching and wandering through the walled city.  

 

We decided to sit along the coast at a beach restaurant and enjoy the weather with an amazing view of the walled city from the outside. Just sitting there enjoying each others company, talking about life, each other and our future was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. I really must say it made me appreciate my life so much more and all the wonderful people I have in it with me.

Our first day we decided to take a morning run. This is something Nik and I like to do when we travel because it gives us a chance to scope out the town in a short amount of time and we get some exercise. It was already hot, but we managed to break a good sweat and make ourselves feel better about the massive amounts of Nik Gold we would be consuming (just joking Mom, we were very responsible). We spent the day laying on the beach. We both swam in the Adriatic and enjoyed the hot sun, but we only lasted about 3 hours. It always sounds fun to lay out on the beach, but I always get to hot and we both couldn't stop thinking about all the fun places we wanted to explore. Plus, no more burns for this  girl. I had on 30 SPF the entire trip. Afterwards we shopped around and went to the grocery store. I know, I know the grocery store? But, truly the grocery store is always one of my favorite things to do in a new country. It is so interesting going into a grocery store and seeing all the different kinds of foods. We picked up some prosciutto (which is a huge staple there), some feta, tomatoes, and bread. Then, we went back to our hotel and enjoyed the snacks on our balcony. BTW, it was by far the best prosciutto and feta I had ever had. Nik agreed. Going to the grocery store also allowed us to try the local foods without spending a fortune.

That evening we decided to go back to old town and explore during the day. This time we decided to pay to go to the top of the city and see the views. It was right around sunset so we were fortunate to get some good photos.