Serbia / Montenegro

August 2005

I didn’t know anything about Serbia, except that the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist provided the trigger for the 1914 Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia and the outbreak of World War One.

History: Yugoslavia had become a republic after World War Two and President Tito remained unaligned with the west or Stalinist Soviet Union for 35 years until he died in 1980. The Presidency became a rotating position and in 1987 Serbian Slobodan Milosevic – who had risen to power on the back of Serbian nationalist rhetoric got his turn as President. Slovenia and Croatia voted for independence in June 1991. Slovenia was deemed a lost cause but the Federal army was sent to Croatia leaving mass carnage and thousands killed before the UN stepped in. The EC recognised Croatian and Slovenian independence whereupon Macedonia and Bosnia-Hercegovina also demanded recognition. Only Montenegro decided to stick with Serbia as the final remnant of Yugoslavia.

The Serbian army stayed in Bosnia and the war continued. By 1996 Bosnia had been divided between Serbs and Croat Muslims. Thousands were dead, the country’s beautiful landscape and historic towns were torn to shreds and the region’s tourist industry all but destroyed. I had visited Bosnia in 1997 and it was a mess. Then Kosovo started to look for autonomy and Slobodan sent in the boys again to kick ass. By early 1999 NATO fearing another Bosnia started dropping bombs on Belgrade. Eventually Slobodan was kicked out (and is currently up on war crimes charges). The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was dissolved in Feb 2003 and the state of Serbia and Montenegro was established, with a vote to take place on Montenegrin independence in 2006. The Serbian prime minister was assassinated in March 2003.

From reading this history, I got the impressions that Serbians would argue with a signpost. And if they couldn’t find anyone to argue with, they argued amongst themselves. No wonder that many Europeans didn’t like Serbians. The British Foreign Office was still giving out warnings to avoid parts of Serbia and all of Kosovo.

Background: Population 10 million – 66% Serbs, 17% Albanians and 37 minority groups. Capital – Belgrade. Eastern Orthodox religion. Currency – Serbian Dinar (121 = £1). Major industries: fighting, invading neighbouring republics, machine building, metallurgy, mining.

In all honesty, I didn’t have one sight to see in Serbia and just treated it as somewhere to drive through to get to the next place. Belgrade the capital had been destroyed 40 times in its 2300 year history – the last time thanks to Bill Clinton – sorry about the hospital, not all our weapons are Smart – and I could find no real reason to drop in to see yet another non descript capital city. This was reinforced by the fact that Serbia charged foreigners an extortionate amount to drive along their motorways (The British Foreign Office suggested 200 Euros to cover the country by motorway!) and every motorway led to Belgrade. So essentially, we headed for Montenegro, bypassing Kosovo.

After crossing the Serbian border, we drove to Nis to find an ATM and get some Dinars. There were no signs out of Nis and we drove round and round trying to escape. We bypassed the motorway heading north and took a new road across country. We didn’t know it was a new road until we got to the end of it and discovered we weren’t where the map thought we should be. The scenery in the late afternoon was very pleasant; forested mountains, valleys filled with rivers, lakes or reservoirs. Sometimes an old castle on a hill overlooking the valley. Little traffic.

We found our way back to the road we had been trying to find and passed through Kralievo. We spent an hour hunting for a hotel and only found one. When the Serbian owner got up from talking with his mates and made up the figure of 63 Euros, we just said “No” and walked out to his amazement. So we headed for Cacek. By now it was dark. We had no information on Serbia let alone Cacek. As we approached the town there was a welcome sign that said “Cacek. 72,000 remnants”, which I thought was quite apt. I stopped and asked some women at a bus stop. Yes there was a hotel which was called ‘President’. We then spent about an hour trying to track it down, asking people, narrowing down the location, eventually finding a police station who said it was just up the road. In the dark with no signs, it was a hard slog and we had been driving for about 14 hours today.

But Hotel Prezident was open and it was only £27 for a double en suite room with Satellite TV. In the room were some House Rules. I refer to two of them 1. Using the room is allowed only to regularly checked in persons who have bucked room at reception desk 3. Client is obligated to checkout 12 hours before leaving hotel and to leave the room until 1pm.

Watching the World Athletic Championships live that night, the Women’s 5000m final started. This race takes about 20 minutes. They were down to the last 200m in a sprint finish and the program just ended with no warning and the commercials came on. No Serbians in the final so who gives a shit? I never did find out the winner.

We fled Cacek (Or Cak Cak as I called it), and saw what the place looked like in daylight before driving to Uzice and then heading south towards Montenegro. We followed the slow, twisty mountainous roads behind dozens of slow moving trucks and roadworks, then through the Zlatar range to the border. That was Serbia. Sorry.

There wasn’t even a real sign to say that we had entered Montenegro, just regional signs. But the scenery got a lot better. Spectacular towering cliffs surrounding valleys. Endless tunnels carved out of the valley sides to drive through. Tumbling rivers through the gorges. Definitely the most spectacular natural scenery we saw during the entire trip. Twisty roads meant slow progress, stuck behind trucks and little overtaking opportunities.

Montenegro. The historical background was mentioned earlier. Montenegro has four major advantages over Serbia. The inland scenery is better, they have a coastline for summer tourists, they didn’t start a war with anyone and consequently, their own historical towns are intact. It is only a small republic, but it seems to have a lot going for it.

We passed through the ‘capital’ Podgorica with its reputation for overpriced hotels and made for the coast. As we dropped down and looked south, I could see the Albanian border. In March 1999, I had stood in that part of Albania and looked at the Montenegro mountains.

The coastline is very acceptable with small sandy inlets. Soon after leaving Przno the road southeast runs above Sveti Stefan “a picture book ialnd, with its cluster of pink roofs and the sandbar linking it to the shore – a beckoning siren in the deep, blue sea” (The biddy in Brandt guidebook). Whatever. It looked pretty good from above. 50 years ago, it was a pretty little fishing village, then some rich person decided to buy the entire place and turn it into a 5 star hotel complex achieving two things; stopping the riffraff like me ever getting a chance to see the old fishing village and secondly giving Mrs Biddy and her porters somewhere to stay away from the riffraff like me. Its worth a photo stop and then you move on the lowest common denominator - Budva, the regions top beach resort.

It was heaving with tourists and late afternoon ‘let’s drive back to our hotel for a nap before dinner’ traffic. There were lots of people with ‘Sobe’ or ‘Zimmer’ held up, but usually they were for apartments and noone was interested in one night only. They wanted people to stay for a week. An old lady flagged us down and took her back to her place where her son negotiated. 30 Euros for a room with shared facilities. We decided to pass. Peak Season Budva was awful and we just wanted to escape the crowds and inflated prices.

Driving out of town we came across ‘zimmer’ at a large family home which seemed to have Bulgarians staying. It was 20 Euros for a modest room and shared facilities. We celebrated by walking to a local fish restaurant across the road for a slap up fish dinner.

The next morning was overcast. We left early for Kotor up the road. I had managed to track down a guide book to Montenegro – the Brandt Travel Guide – but it was written by the wife of a British diplomat who obviously took her holidays in a different way to us. Of Kotor she wrote “No cars are allowed within the old city; bags must be carried in by foot or porter”. Porter? Oh I must remember to bring mine next time when the British Embassy is paying for him. It was one of the worse guidebooks I’ve ever looked at and beg you never to buy it. She was very good at waxing lyrical and suggesting ways to get rid of large wads of cash, rather than getting to grips with what is actually in the country that doesn’t involve a credit card or a porter.

No matter what she wrote, she couldn’t ruin Kotor. As we approached it via the Bay of Kotor, the hour glass shaped tidal bay was surrounded by tall mountains guarding its treasures. In the early 15th Century, Kotor was an independent City Republic with its own elected prince and minted its own coins. With the threat of the Ottoman Empire, Kotor placed itself under the protection of Venice in 1420. It went on to suffer three earthquakes (which were nothing to do with the Turks).

The higher old town is triangular in shape, encircled by walls and only three main gates. With nearly 5km of walls, they are twice the length of those at more famous Dubrovnik up the coast and the walls rise spectacularly to the crest of the rocky hillside behind the tight knitted buildings and harbour. It was one of the best fortified towns in the Adriatic.

The lower city is full of marble flagstones, and Renaissance palaces and small Romanesque churches, broken up by idyllic squares and a maze of narrow alleyways. You don’t need to worry about the names of what you are seeing, it is the fact that the entire complex is perfectly formed and maintained.

We arrived before 8am and had the town to ourselves. The cafes were still empty, the shops were still closed and tourists were conspicuously absent. Locals chatted to each other in the squares or read newspapers in the sun. We were only there a couple of hours, but it was one of the highlights on our trip. Online Lonely Planet doesn’t even mention it. Fools.

Further around the bay, we popped into the small quaint harbour town of Perast. With its strategic position and a large safe harbour, it was once the rival to Kotor until they allied under Venetian control. The town looks out to two small flat islands in the middle of the bay. One contains a Benedictine Monastery of St George. Biddy Brandt described it as “Across the water two tiny inlets floating silently form a hypnotic scene”. We were mesmerised for at least 5 minutes. After that, it was a case of following the twisty coastal road around by the side of the hills and cliffs and heading north to the Croatian border.

Serbia Montenegro conclusion. I think it will take a long time before anyone has a reason to visit Serbia, though some of the scenery is excellent. But Montenegro is spectactular and is already set up as a tourist destination. You could do a lot worse than spend an off season week on the coast with a rented car to get some sun, sand, sea, stunning scenery and old historic towns. The Eastern Europeans are starting to flock back. Just make sure you go before the Lonely Planet starts to publicise it. And don’t buy that bloody book. The Croatia border was about 30 minutes from Perast. It was an easy crossing that took 30 minutes with a brand new border complex that had obviously been built to handle the future growth in tourism.

Travel - £ 5.83
Accommodation - £19.10
Food - £0
Other - £0
Total - £24.93

Travel - £ 20.10
Accommodation - £13.40
Food - £16.75
Other - £0
Total - £50.25