Черногория - загляденье! Montenegro - a feast for the eyes!

We rested in Montenegro for the first time, on a tour package. The travel agency offered villas "Mira", "Anita-3" without meals and "Anita" with 2 meals a day (additional payment of 50 euros for 10 days). We decided to stay there. Here the reviews describe two different villas with the same name. Anita, who is without food, is close to the Old Town and Mogren Beach. The second, in which we lived, is at the other end of Budva opposite the Alexander Hotel, and from it to the Old Town it takes 30-40 minutes slowly along the embankment.
I must say right away that Anita is for the unpretentious. When we arrived, we were slightly disappointed in the double room - a tiny room, oldish furniture, greasy walls, a short drying rope, no hooks and curtains in the bathroom, we even had to ask for batteries for the remote control. But the room had a refrigerator, TV, air conditioning, a bedside table, a wardrobe with hangers, a hairdryer, 2 glasses, a mirror only in the bathroom, liquid soap, a table and 2 chairs on the balcony. Every day they took out the garbage, changed the towels (they were not thrown on the floor, but hung on the bathroom door : )), the bed was changed 1 time in 10 days, they were almost never cleaned. The villa has rooms with a kitchenette - they are better and more spacious.
Our room overlooked the sea and the highway, so it was noisy in the evening from the cars, and sometimes in the morning there was a smell of cooking. But you can not hear the discos on the waterfront. There is a construction site nearby, but it is closed during the summer season.

Breakfasts at the villa are monotonous - tea, milk, bread, butter, jam and a choice of pizza, scrambled eggs + cheese, sausages or pate, a couple of times there were fried zucchini, once croissants. No fruits or vegetables for breakfast. Better dinners - for the first soup, for the second cutlet, stuffed peppers, chop, fish, stew, rice, peas, vermicelli, fried potatoes with spinach (if mashed, then like Mivina) and fresh vegetables - tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage (almost always with vinegar - we asked not to water). For dessert, a sponge cake with filling or watermelon. The waitress is good, polite, sympathetic, does not speak Russian, but we always understood each other. There, in general, it is not a problem to express yourself, and Russian visitors are almost everywhere. If you go on a tour, then it is a little inconvenient with the eviction - you are evicted at 10.00, and go to the airport at 14.00. But you could leave your luggage, sit downstairs at the tables, if you need to go to the toilet.
The villa is located very conveniently, near the Slavia supermarket, there is also a bus stop, both for Olympia and for sightseeing buses. From the villa 10 minutes to the city beach, but it is dirty and crowded. It was more interesting for us to visit different beaches, so we went to the beach on Olympia minibuses (2 euros / person) or taxis (6-8 euros / 4 people): 1) Yaz - clean, large, small pebbles and sand; 2) Trsteno - small small beach, sand, good with children; 3) St. Stefan - pebbles, at the entrance to the sea in some places large, very clean and beautiful. From it you can walk through the park along the beaches of Milocer, Korolevskiy, Przhno, Kamenovo, Rafailovici (2.5-3 hours). From our Anita close to Becici - 20 minutes through the tunnel, there the beach is wider and cleaner than in Budva. We also went to Mogren-1.2. This year, the entrance is free (it seems to be due to the convergence of the block, but everything was cleaned up, at least I didn’t notice any signs of collapse), so there were a lot of people there, like in the city, only cleaner and more comfortable. There is no shade on almost all beaches, except for St. Stephen until 15.00 and Mogren after 15.00, so we took an umbrella (2 euros). Things can be safely left on the beach, no one touches anything. The sea in Montenegro is a fairy tale! Beautiful, clean, the bottom can be seen even behind the buoys, without jellyfish and algae, salty, perfectly holds, as if you are lying on a mattress, you can’t compare with Black : ). That's just during our vacation it was cold, it's a pity we didn't swim enough. Although, those who love frosty water, that was just right.
The cafes here are better than those on the waterfront and near the Old Town. The ones further away, like Orange, are cheaper, but the service and food quality is worse. Were in the vaunted Mozart - cute, tasty, but the choice of sweets is small, and we waited a long time for the order, although there were almost no people there. We liked the cozy inexpensive Chinese restaurant Kineski at the gates of the Old City opposite the yachts closer to the Masha cafe. The menu is varied, served large portions, good service and everything is delicious. For fruit we went to the market next to the Megamarket. We gorged ourselves on peaches, grapes, raspberries, apricots (prices 1.5-3 euros / kg), but did not have time to try figs. We saw him on the first day, and then he disappeared and for some reason did not appear again.
We went on an excursion to Dubrovnik, canyons, Skadar Lake, Boko-Kotor. There was an opinion that the high prices of excursions are incomparable with their fullness. It was free in Dubrovnik, no one trampled, as it was written in one review. We stood at the border for almost 2 hours. Take your passport and registration card with you if you live in the private sector, we were not warned, but we were not asked for it. Everything in Dubrovnik is 1.5-2 times more expensive than in Budva. You can not change the euro, they accept it almost everywhere (1 euro = 7 kunas). The Croatian guide spoke good Russian, told the whole history of the city, but chattered very quickly. If your guide recommends one cafe where you can eat inexpensively, do not rush to agree - there are cheaper and more comfortable cafes there. In general, if old cities are interesting and you want to walk along all the streets, then it is better to go to Dubrovnik on your own by car. The excursion to Skadar Lake turned out to be purely for skiing and swimming from a boat. Nothing remarkable, even those islands depicted on the entrance tickets, were not shown to us. Most of all I was impressed by the tour of the canyons and the Black Lake (taken from Mediteran Star). It can be very cold in the mountains, just in case, take a sweater and socks. You can safely go there with children, in slippers - there are no mountain trails along the hiking route (which is a pity, I wanted to climb : )). Some write that the trip is exhausting; we were fine - we were fond of the view of the stunning mountains, listened to the interesting storytelling guide Dragon, on the way we stopped several times to take pictures, visited the monastery, then dined (10 euros) in a cafe near a large mountain stream. Unfortunately, we were given only 1 hour to walk by the Black Lake. We just had time to take pictures. There is absolutely no time left to sit down and enjoy nature. Although in the cold, jogging was very helpful : ). And our neighbors in the villa also went there the day before and the weather was sunny, swam in the lake and walked there for 2.5 hours. In general, it is better to go to the mountains by car and overnight. There are apartments for rent near the Black Lake, and you can also with a tent.

As a result, the rest in Montenegro came to our taste. If there is an opportunity, we will go again and rent a car. I recommend this country to those who want to swim in the cleanest sea and see the magnificent nature!