My Holy Days in Montenegro

Even though I am not a religious person, I am a highly spiritual person and I will not think twice to visit any religious place in the world. I have always felt peaceful when visiting a religious place when it is not crowded and I think there is something magical about such places. I visited several holy or religious places during this trip to Montenegro - churches, monasteries and an old mosque  I loved every moment of it.

CHURCH

 

 

FEMALE MONASTERY - I got a chance to visit this place...........and I feel gifted and blessed

hand-made pottery

the nuns had hand-painted the switches!

Look at the artwork on the wood beams and wall - everything is done by the marvelous nuns living there

 

This is a magnificent mosque in Pljevlja dating from the 16th century and was built by Husein-Pasha Koljanic. Check out the domes of the mosque - it contains exquisite paintings - again I feel privileged to have visited the mosque

 

 

 

 

Muslim graveyard next to the mosque

Hanging around Budva

This morning I spent about 3 hours in Budva, a famous coastal town in Montenegro.  This place is well known for all the Mediterranean architecture, the beautiful beaches and vibrant nightlife.  Budva is the oldest settlements on the Adriatic Sea coast – more than 3500 years old!!

An old ship's anchor is a permanent feature just outside the old city of Budva

There are many stories related to this old town.  Some say, it was founded by Cadmus the Phoenician and his wife Harmonia;  they found shelter in this place after they were exiled out of Greece.  Over the years this place was reigned by Roman Empire, the Serbian empire, by the Venetians, the French, Austria-Hungary, Italians and Russians!!  Therefore, the people here seemed to have a bit of influence from these various countries.  At one time, it was even part of Yugoslavia but today, Montenegro is independent and building itself to be recognised world wide.

Much of the architecture in old Budva is of Venetian design. All the doors, windows, balconies and even hinges of the doors looked interesting to me and reminded me of my trip to Italy and Venice.

I found lots of wells like this within the old city

Thousands of tourists flock to Budva every year during the high season.  My new friends in Montenegro said that practically everyone in Budva is rich!  Apparently, some people even call this place Montenegrin Kuwait - many of the residents here sold their houses to foreign investos for big money and became millionaires.  Most of the buyers were Russians, Austrians and Italians.

a souvenir shop

Budva's most famous beach is Mogren and it is nestled between large cliffs. I found out that the beach got its name after the Spanish mariner Morgini who got down here after a shipwreck

I stopped by the Hotel Astoria located right at the beach for coffee.  The Bruschetta here had three kinds of meat and three kinds of cheese.  The place was crowded with tourists.

Since the weather was extremely hot and the sky was clear, the sun was scorching and so many of the tourists moved away for sheltered seats. 

After coffee, I walked around within the old city.

Look at the narrow path between two rows of shops?  Well, it is like this almost throughout the old city which makes it quaint and interesting. 

I also visited two beautiful ancient churches.  The first was St. Ivan's which was built in the 7th century and the second St. Mary's of Punta dating from 840.

Eventually, I walked out of the old city and experienced some really beautiful sights.

I found a BATA shop and it had none of the models of shoes or sandals that we have in Singapore.

One of the popular discotheque.

I could not resist going into an old fashioned ice cream parlour to have this apple pie.  It was heavy with apples and one of the best apple pies I have ever tasted.

It is early spring now and you can see all these kind of flowers lining the roads and pavements making the city very colourful.

Sleepy old fishing village in Milocer

From Hotel Residence Milocer Hotel, I had a great view of part of the beach and so I decided that I will take a walk there.  It was less than 25 minutes of peaceful walk to the beauty beach.  Hardly saw anyone along the way………well it explains, Montenegro’s population is less than 650,000 people!!

Along with ancient style stone houses, you can also see modern buildings like this below.  There are also lots of new developments in Milocer.

Many seafood restaurants dotted the place.  Some had very unique fascinating fascade.  Some restaurants called seafood "sea fruits".

The picture below shows the front of a seafood restaurant.  I spent about 10 minutes looking through all the stuff on display here - many are remains from a ship.

View from one of those charming houses

This is the outside of some of the fishermen's houses.

I loved this fisherman's house - it had bright green windows (many of the houses in this row either had green or red windows) and almost thousands of things on the front of the house!

The front of the fisherman's house. I spent about 20 minutes chatting with the fisherman (he spoke very little English) and watched him picking over his salad leaves that he was going to prepare for dinner! And I cannot remember his name - but certainly a memorable character especially his house!

A seafood restaurant not far from the fisherman's house.  From the red bench here, I had a breathtaking view of the sea and the mountains! Mind you, the wind was so chilly, I had to use triple layers of clothes and an inner and outer scarf to protect the neck from becoming stiff from cold.

I had a great tomato based fish soup in this restaurant and along with the soup, they served bread and hot polenta bread with local cheese in it.  Nothing like having hot delicious, nutritious soup and hot bread on a windy day, sitting and watching the sun setting at the horizon.  What is life.........but to sit and eat and stare.

I took a picture of a lamp in the restaurant.  See the sunset through the handle of the lamp.

The sun was setting as I walked back to the hotel.