Got into Montenegro’s capital when it was already dark; immediately headed for Pod Volat, praised by the guidebook as one of Podgorica’s best (and greasiest) restaurants. The sort of place where, as I discovered, if you accidentally order a side of chips with a dish that already comes with chips, they won’t ask questions but will deliver the 🍟 🍟. I slept well last night.
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| Podgorica’s historic clocktower in the dark |
Today’s been a quiet one: slow start, then pottering around Podgorica’s streets and enjoying the famed Balkan café culture. Hopefully I can be forgiven that given the frenetic pace of the last three days. The Lonely Planet is pretty lukewarm about “pint-sized” Podgorica (population: 200k) and whether it is worth a visit at all. It doesn’t have a honeypot old touristy centre like Mostar and Sarajevo, but it helped me to get a sense of what a city in this part of the world is really like.
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| Multilingual street art (Montenegrin with Turkish words) |
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| Podgorica’s Millennium Bridge |
Time enough for some reflections today. I’ve been surprised at how much 10 months of Duolingo Ukrainian and four evening classes has enabled me to understand of the local languages. Not everyone speaks a lot of English here, but with that plus limited Ukrainian plus the guidebook I’ve been able to get by. Ukrainian (East Slavic) and the local South Slavic varieties aren’t even that closely related! I should learn more about Slavic languages.
Besides cafés, my wanderings took me to the Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, with its controversial fresco of Marshal Tito, Marx and Engels burning in hell. Also to the cute Petrović palace, which houses a contemporary art museum currently featuring Bolivian art.
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| Petrović palace |
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| Cathedral interior |
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| Josip, Karl and Friedrich (above the worm-beast’s head) |
Feeling inspired, I also did some relaxed writing about language, over a coffee. Starting to get itchy feet, though – I’ll be back on the road tomorrow!
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