Belgrade/Novi Sad, Serbia

Driving back through Montenegro was both stunning and slow (and not helped by the Serbian border being shut for 4 hours on arriving there). Soon I was back on the way to Belgrade though and booked into the excellent Manga Hostel in the city centre.

Belgrade is a big and imposing city where art nouveau and baroque buildings are interspersed by concrete towers while modern glass buildings squeeze in between. Add to this the Sava river joining the Danube in flowing through the city plus a big fortress and you have the makings of a proper capital.

The fort is a good place to start your city wanderings and the centre has been turned into a big park and socialising centre for the locals. There are numerous gates, towers and concentric walls as well as a few good spots to look out over the city.

The Military Museum is also within the fortress walls with a few old tanks standing outside. The apporopriately named "Tankette" I think I could probably have put in my pocket and walked off with. As for the musuem, there is a lot to see but the timeline stops short around the 1990's, I wonder why?
 

Almost right outside the hostel are the beautiful Parliament building and the big St Marko Church containing the tomb of Emperor Dusan. Both of these look tiny in comparison to the Sveti Sava church though. This titanic building is the largest church in the world but on the inside there is nothing to see except the huge concrete dome and a lot of scaffolding as the building is currently getting renovated (again).

Elsewhere in the city, there are a few bits which are worth a look. The Saborna Church with it's ornate tower and the period Palace Of Princess Ljubica are both reasonable while right in between is a cool little bar/restaurant simply known as "?". Inside, you sit on tiny wooden stools at low tables like at primary school and I eventually plucked up the courage to try their "White Kidneys" - that's bulls testicles to you and me! Perhaps it was a good thing when I found out that they weren't available at the time.

Belgrade has some good nightlife but wasn't really a very appealing city to me and I left a day early to visit Novi Sad about an hour north of the city - a place I immediately enjoyed a lot more.

The buildings are stunning from the worn old shop fronts in the old quarter to the bright and clean classical architecture of the town centre while the Danube slices right through the middle and provides some sandy beaches for the summer months. Up on top of the hill by the river is the Petrovaradin Citadel, a labyrinth of walls, tunnels, grassy verges and viewpoints of the Danube.

The centre of town is much less manic than Belgrade too and the skyline is punctuated by the big Catholic church with it's huge spire and patterned tile roof. Facing the church across the main square is the equally impressive Town Hall while a short walk down the street brings you out at the wonderful Bishop's Palace and the Orthodox church.

While big Belgrade may have been a bit grey and serious, Novi Sad is it's colourful fun-lovin' cousin... and I know which one I prefer.

Sveti Stefan/Kotor, Montenegro

The Montenegro border was easy enough, that was until some spurious official informed me that there is an €80 toll for large vehicles entering the country. After some Ukrainian style police bartering though, that fee quickly dropped to a sneaky €40 while no-one was looking and I was back on my way.

Montenegro is a stunning place, where the forested hills and mountains are everywhere and driving through the roads is fantastic... for all of a couple of hours. After this, the winding roads in second and third gear begin to take their toll and you begin to beg for some straight road which never materialises. I think any journey you take in Montenegro must take twice as long as it looks on a map. Still, it is a stunning place to drive through and it is only improved on reaching the coast where the high passes look down on secluded beaches and islands in the Adriatic Sea.

It is here where I made my first stop, in the coastal town of Sveti Stefan. There is nothing too special about the majority of this seaside town, just lots of apartments overlooking the sea but the coast here is fantastic. Firstly, there is the island area of old town which is built on a rock out to sea and connected to the mainland by a little walkway. When I visited, it was frustrating that the island was strictly off limits as lots of maintenance work was underway but from the coast it looks superb from almost any angle surrounded by the bluest of water and a long stretch of beach on either side.

A little walk along the coast brings you too a lovely secluded cove with a sandy beach and a little cave on one side. The cave brings you out at a little diving platform on the water's edge. Despite the autumn weather, I couldn't resist taking a swim and the water is still perfectly warm and clear - it just meant I got the place all to myself.

The hills behind Sveti Stefan are dotted with vacant little churches and I braved the onset of rain to hike up to the top on one. I am sure on a clear day the views are spectacular but in the rain it loses a bit of it's appeal.

One full day is about enough to see Sveti Stefan (even if it felt like I could spend weeks there) so I took a short drive down the coast to the Bay Of Kotor for a few days. As a town, Kotor is beautiful and once you add in the mountains on one side and the stunning greeny-blue water on the other, the town becomes a paradise and one of my favourite places on the journey.

The old town area is a big walled citadel built from the local limestone and the tall buildings are all fitted with green window shutters and seperated by winding alleyways. The city walls extend all the way up the hill to a fortress with the bay and river protecting the rest of the settlement. Right in the middle of the old town, I booked into the nice Montenegro Hostel.

From the outskirts of town you can hike up the city walls to the fortress at the top of the hill. The winding path of about 1500 steps takes a bit of effort but the increasingly good views and rest spots on the way up make the whole thing worth it. The fortress itself is not as impressive as it looks from the ground and a lot of the buildings have been repaired inside with old concrete blocks and rusty steelwork. The views of the town's red roofs and bay below could be worse though!

Back in the picture-perfect old town, there are a number of old churches, cathedrals, museums, and a big clock tower at the main entrance to keep any visitor busy wandering around. I even got to see a traditional Montenegrin wedding which basically involves a loud guy chanting and waving a huge national flag through the streets. At night though the place is transformed as the bars compete with each other for who can play the loudest techno music and the country's biggest club can be found hiding away in the corner.

If you get out of the town and wander around the bay you can start to appreciate the town at night even more when you see the fortifications all lit up as they snake up the hillside and form a big golden halo around the town reflected in the water. Once you factor in the palm-tree lined boulevards, marina, beaches and swimming areas just outside the town walls, it is hard to think of too many things that this sickeningly beautiful little place is missing.