A full day to explore the city. Or at least that’s the plan.
I wake up to the sound of stray dogs barking, and put the telly on. It seems every channel is football.
I go downstairs for a shit and a shower which, it turns out, all goes on in the same little cubicle. I spot what looks like Montenegran deodorant and spray my pits. I then have a second shower to clean off the Montenegran shaving foam from my pits.
I’ve brought the Lonely Planet Guide to the Western Balkans. I look up Montenegro. Budva gets five pages. Kotor gets five pages. Podgorica gets one page, and half of that is taken up with a photo of a lake that’s not in Podgorica.
Podgorica is home to 150,000 people, making it the largest city in the country. Following the second world war it was renamed Titograd, in honour of its socialist leader. At that time, Montenegro didn’t exist as an independent state, it was part of Yugoslavia, until the violent break up of the country in the 1990s. They only became an independent football nation in 2007.
Much of the city is of the functional post-war socialist style, with very few of the architectural attractions that are abundant in many other European cities.
At the crack of noon, we head out into the midday sun. We were expecting it to be warm (I’ve only brought shorts) but we weren’t expecting it to be this warm.
Of the limited number of things to do here, we had spotted the Itaka Library Bar so head there. It’s half bar half library, tucked underneath a huge bridge that spans a small dried up river. Outside, there’s loads of graffiti on the bridge with tables and chairs scattered around. Inside, there’s a bar and lots of books. Mellow Acid Jazz wafts through the air, wrapping around our ears like a comfort blanket. We chill in the shade and quench our thirst with the first beer of the day.
We are hungry though. It’s now afternoon and we have had nothing. It’s Sunday and almost everything is shut. The library bar doesn’t do food, so we head off to forage.
We head in the direction of the Cathedral that is listed as the city’s only ‘must see attraction’, hoping there will be a restaurant en route.
Eventually, like two members of the Foreign Legion that have just walked the Sahara without any water, we stumble into Host, an air conditioned restaurant that appears to be selling food.
We order water and are reunited with our old travelling companion, Leffe Brune. A thorough examination of the menu suggests vegetarianism is not big in Montenegro. We order a couple of side dishes and a salad, and log into the WiFi.
Wonky Sherp, the official Wales Football Travel Club, are still struggling to find a courtesy plane. (See yesterday’s blog.) Some fans are giving up and making their own way to Podgorica. Some are giving up and just going home. As a result, more tickets for the game are becoming available – but being snapped up as quickly as you can say ‘what’s the WiFi password?”
The food arrives and is really rather nice. Even though it’s side dishes, it fills us up. I check out Facebook and can see videos of Wales fans at a beach party in Budva. They seem to be enjoying themselves, but they are not going to be able to soak up the majesty of our next stop: the Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ.
This impressive large church sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the otherwise underwhelming buildings in the area. It looks like it has survived through several centuries remarkably well, but it was only completed in 2013, after twenty years under construction.
Inside is a masterpiece of art, with the walls adorned with paintings of various religious characters and more bling than Donald Trump’s bathroom. We sit in silent contemplation, admiring the work that has gone into creating the building.
Then we sit in silent contemplation in the pub next door, feeling sorry for all those at the beach party missing out on all this culture. At least they are in Montenegro though. Word around the campfire is that Wonky have had to cancel their flight.
We decided that we didn’t want to do too much more sight seeing today. We have three more days after all, we need to leave something to do on Tuesday.
We slowly wander back to the pub next to our apartment, stopping in several bars on the way to quench our thirsts. We stop at a pizzeria and chat with the guy behind the counter. He had never heard of Wales and struggled to get his head around Montenegro playing ‘The United Kingdom’, which was odd because he follows his national team. After several minutes we realise he is Kosovan and doesn’t have a lot of time for the people of Montenegro. Which begs the question why has he been living here for nine years?
Our local pub, Kristal Bar is moderately busy, and still serving food on a Sunday night. It’s 11pm, and still 26 degrees.
After a few local beers we decided to try a local grape based brandy, Loza.
I’ll be honest, I couldn’t actually taste any grapes. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll taste anything ever again because it burned the taste buds off my tongue. And made me blind for ten minutes. But when my eyesight returned I spotted something I had not noticed in my life pre-Loza. People drinking bottles of cider! We hadn’t spotted it on the menu because it was listed under wines. We vow to come back the next day, after we have grown new taste buds.