From Serbia to Montenegro

Driving through Serbia the next couple of days is beautiful, though finding camping turns out to be more difficult than expected, not having good maps or apps telling us where the campsites are. On the other hand, we are invited to a glass of Raki the next night, close to Sabac. The old couple owning the camping doesn’t speak a lot of English, but we sit down around their table and have some kind of a conversation anyhow. Serbian hospitality!

Continuing south through the country side to Bajina Basta, then a little upstream along the river Drina to Perucac. Again, not much choice when it comes to camping. The only place we find is a kind of parking lot with a public toilet/shower belonging to a hotel next by. We are the only guests. Luckily there is a wonderful restaurant close by, built over the river Vrelo, where we have a pleasant dinner later that evening. The river Vrelo is, according to a sign in town, Europe’s shortest river, 300 metres long, with its own power station, fish farm and 10 metres high waterfall.

The next day we drive through Tara National Park which is part of the Dinaric Alps. The mountain’s slopes are clad in dense forests with numerous high-altitude clearings and deep ravines carved by the Drina River. The scenery is truly beautiful, and we stop many times along the road to take inn the view. We stop in Mitrovac for a strong cup of coffee (they brew it like in Greece or Turkey using very finely ground coffee beans unfiltered).

Continuing our trip through the country side, mainly choosing small roads, we first cross the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina close to Vardiste, then back to Serbia in Priboj and finally to Montenegro in Pljevlja. The landscape reminds me a bit about the Swiss Alps, with narrow valleys, small rivers and small patches of agriculture. Though the villages are poor, the houses often in bad condition. Road conditions on the other hand are better than we expected which doesn’t mean that we get on fast. With our heavy trailer we seldom drive faster the 40 km/h up the mountains, and a little more on the way down. Distances take longer than expected, we’ve obviously miscalculated a little and will have to adopt our route as we continue towards Greece.

Next destination on our trip is the Durmitor National Park. We approach the park from the Northeast and get a first impression of its dramatic landscape when crossing the Tara Bridge in Durdevica. Leaving the car on the parking lot we walk out on the bridge. 170 metres above the Tara River we watch people flying by on zip lines and others rafting on the river far below. The railing of the concrete bridge is relatively low, and we don’t really feel too comfortable standing on it.

We continue to Zabljak, the highest urban settlement on Balkans (1’450 m above sea level) and the touristic hub in Durmitor National Park. It is only 5 kilometres from the bridge to the village but driving up the steep winding road takes us another half an hour. Along the road we see many of the characteristic small mountain cottages with steep roofs almost down to the ground. There must be a lot of snow in this area during winter.

Again, the campsite is a disappointment. Nothing wrong with the scenery – the surrounding mountain tops are stunning – but amenities are a disgrace… I am glad none of us has too big claims when it comes to comfort.

The campsite is close to Black Lake and we do the little hike around the lake in the afternoon. It is an easy 5 km walk around the two connected lakes Big Lake and Little Lake, the premium tourist attraction of the Durmitor area.

We book a rafting tour on the Tara for the coming day – an absolutely must-do visiting this area. In some parts, the walls of the Tara Canyon are 1’300 metres deep, making it the second deepest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon. What we don’t know when booking the trip is that we won’t be passing this part of the canyon, since one must book a longer tour than the one we are doing. Our trip down the Tara is beautiful, we cross underneath the bridge and pass a big waterfall, but the waters are very quiet (too quiet according to Robin) and we never see the famous high walls.

During the night we experience another violent thunderstorm with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. For nearly three hours we are in the middle of it and it is quite scary to be honest. The rain stops finally in the morning, but everything is wet when we pack together tents, tables and chairs. Driving through the mountains later that morning turns out be magnificent with clouds and fog hanging in the mountains. Hoping for better weather we continue south, visiting two orthodox monasteries, Piva and Ostrog. The first famous for its frescoes, the second for its dramatic location, situated against an almost vertical background, high up in a large rock.

On our way we pass another thunderstorm with extreme rain – feels like driving through the deluge. We cross our fingers for better weather along the coast of the Adriatic Sea.