Balkans day 5: Into Montenegro

Third day in a row of getting up before 7am. This time I hop on a local bus to East Sarajevo, where I transfer to a somewhat rusty minibus that will take me across the mountains to a new country. Overland connections between Bosnia and Montenegro are few and far between, and on experiencing the terrain I can now understand why.

The Piva Gorge opens out

The bus starts by rising into the snow-speckled hills beyond Sarajevo, in Republika Srpska territory. These give way to snow-capped mountains and rocky, winding crevasses, before a descent into the Drina river valley near Foča. The twenty or so kilometres to the border with Montenegro, hugging the hillside high above the Drina, are the wildest of the journey: the road here isn’t even metalled, and progress is stuttering. The only signs of humanity here are white-water rafting camps, clusters of huts (there are a lot of these). The border guards at the confluence of the Drina and Tara don’t exactly look surprised to see us, but they can’t lead busy lives. After this we rise up again into the jaw-dropping Piva Gorge, where sheer walls of karst plunge into turquoise mountain water; the road alternates between tunnels and implausible ledges, peeping in and out of the mountainside as if it’s afraid of heights. There has been a great deal of impressive terrain so far on this holiday, but this stretch takes the cake.

Wait, we’re going across that?

Aaand back into the mountain

Eventually, after Plužine, we leave the mountains and the snow behind and descend towards my proximate destination. Nikšić is Montenegro’s second city, and suffers the indignity of not even being mentioned in my Lonely Planet guide; even Wikipedia, ever diplomatic, notes in its Culture section that the city is “mostly perceived as an industrial center”. It’s a Yugoslavian-era planned town whose growth was due to the metal industry, and the whole time I was there it was pissing it down with rain, which didn’t help endear it to me. I could have stayed on the bus all the way to Podgorica, but my keen planning mind had noted that there is a railhead in Nikšić, and, well, since trains are free…

Rainbow over Nikšić

Bedem fortress in a brief moment of light

Adorable railcar (not my train)

I mostly kept my head down while it rained, and discovered that one could get a really good coffee for €0.70 here. Konstanz working cafés, take note! When the rain lessened, I went exploring, and found the ruins of Bedem fortress, with flags flying. At exactly 5pm I hopped on the train to the capital, Podgorica. Behind its murky windows under lowering skies is where I’m writing this.