Sunny days in Montenegro

My first foray outside of Albania occurred back in October. I went with a local group called "HASH" to Montenegro for the weekend. I'll spend another blog on the "HASHers", but for now, it will suffice to say that this is a very varied group of individuals who get together every weekend to go running in the countryside, followed by an evening of gorging themselves on chicken wings and beer. I'm told every country has a group, and quite frankly, I'm not surprised. :-) Anyways, they sponsored a trip to Budva, Montenegro and I was lucky enough to be able to participate.

Budva is Montenegro's jewel on the coast. A wonderfully preserved walled city, with a strong tourist economy and enough variation for all income levels. The best thing about this trip was that I met one of my best friends, Karolina, on this trip. Karolina has since unfortunately departed back to Sweden, where I plan to visit and cause some mayhem around June 21st. So stay tuned for more on that front...

We happened to be there the last weekend of the tourist season, and a large festival was being held for the Budva community, to celebrate another successful tourist season. There was fresh fish, free wine and live entertainment. A fantastic way to celebrate, if you ask me!

Here is the local grillmaster, hard at work!

And the yummy grillins!

And here is our little group, from left to right, Christina, Ingrid, Karolina, and Johan, patiently waiting in line for our free fish. :-)

Visiting other towns in Montenegro, such as Kotor...

...and Herceg Novi. Dougie likes Herceg Novi! :-)