As we do a lot of Geo-caching it is important to me to find Geo-caches in as many countries as possible – therefore this was probably the main driver for us visiting Montenegro (as well as the fact I’d seen lots of day-trip ideas on Trip Advisor)

I’d read that the border could take hours to cross and we should avoid weekends and peak holiday seasons……so we went on a Saturday in the middle of August! We drove out of Dubrovnik at about 7.30am and were at the border within the hour. There was no queue, we were through within 10 minutes and we were very excited to get our passports stamped!

Montenegro definitely felt different to Croatia. We drove for about a mile and had to stop as a cow was crossing the road.

I’d planned a pretty detailed itinerary and our first stop was the town of Perast on the Bay of Kotor. The scenery when driving along the water was stunning, tall mountains and blue sea. The distance wasn’t vast but the roads were very slow. We did notice there were lots of fishing pots in the sea which we guessed were for lobsters and mussels.

We reached the town of Perast and after being shown where to park by someone who then tried to sell us a boat trip we wandered into the town. It was so beautiful – lovely stone buildings, a few restaurants by the sea but it didn’t feel overly commercial.

Just off the coast of Perast is a little island with a church on it called ‘Our Lady of the Rocks’ And there was a Geo-cache on the island so we took a short boat trip out to see it – we always enjoy a boat trip! We had a great guide on the ship who gave us loads of information but were slightly perturbed by some of the other passengers so eager to get their perfect photo they would literally stand on you!

^{Boat to ‘Our Lady of the Rocks’}

As lots of tour coaches visit our aim had been to beat the tours. – and luckily we did. We found our Geo-Cache, Tom and Izzy had an argument about who got to hold it for the photo and then we returned to Perast where we had ice cream.

^{Exploring the Island}

^{Boat trip back to Perast}

We carried on driving around the Bay until we reached Kotor (a UNESCO site) We parked in a huge car park and walked towards the walled town. There was a massive cruise ship in the harbour which we found fascinating. We’ve never been on a cruise and have never even stood by a cruise ship so were just taken back by how big it was.

We explored the old town and although it is beautiful with all the small cobbled alleyways we actually preferred Perast. Kotor just seemed full of tourist shops. We climbed up onto the walls to see the views and then went and had more ice cream.

^{Exploring Kotor}

We then carried on around the bay and headed for Lepetane to catch a car ferry which takes you back to where you started on the Bay of Kotor to save us driving back the way we came. There were 4 car ferries shuttling backwards and forwards, so we queued for about an hour until it was our turn to board. While we were waiting we watched the cruise ship we saw in Kotor sail out of the Bay towards the Adriatic.

^{Taking the car ferry back}

We headed back to the border but this time there were long delays – it took over an hour to get through.

We spent another evening sat on the balcony watching cruise ships, aeroplanes and the sunset. Although Stu and I were becoming slightly obsessed and had downloaded an app telling us where each plane and cruise ship were going to!