'The Best of Montenegro Tour': My Thoughts

Tui is our holiday provider/airline of choice when it comes to package holidays - and one of the reasons we consistently choose them is the ease at which we can book reliable excursions. In Sorrento, Italy, we did the Pompeii tour with them, and also a trip to Capri island. This time, we chose to see two countries in one by getting a trip to Montenegro from Croatia; this was possible because we were based near Dubrovnik close to the border.

It was the second cheapest Tui trip we have ever booked - it cost around £50 each with a small admin fee because we booked in branch before our holiday. They were a bit shady about whether we'd need a visa, which was a bit confusing because surely they would want us to be prepared. Luckily we spoke to a newer employee who was nice enough to tell us that she didn't think we would need one. So, we hoped she was right, and only purchased travel insurance.

A month later - finally the day! - were picked up at 7.45am sharp outside our hotel in Cavtat, and it can't have taken more than 15 minutes to reach the Croatian border. They rightfully had very strict procedures so it took a while to get through with so many tourists on one bus. We started near the front of the queue but still it took us around an hour to pass through. Later we were told that it can take up to 3 HOURS at peak times. After that, we got to the Montenegran border who were a little more relaxed due to the earlier check. Then, it was onto Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks.

We had a short pit-stop near the border to buy snacks for the journey (remember to take your Euros!)

Perast was a lovely little village but we didn't have much time to ourselves there. Our guide got us all on a small boat across the sea to the church on the island - Our Lady of the Rocks. Honestly me and Josh were just along for the ride on this one - the church was pretty but we were really waiting for Kotor. However it is always nice to learn a little history and see new sights. The mountains in the area were so breathtaking.

It was a little bit of a hassle getting back to Perast mainland. A couple of tourists in our group got lost or just decided to stay having a look around, so we were held up getting back to the coach. The tour guide had to go find them while about 20 of us waited on the boat, which to me was a bit anxiety-inducing but then again anything sets me off nowadays! Everything was OK in the end and we continued our bus journey to Kotor.

Far-off view of Our Lady of The Rocks (mid-right)

I have to say this really was the main event. Kotor is stunning. But again, we had some qualms about the group tour. Our guide swapped with another guide outside the Kotor Old Town gates, and I'm not too sure why this had to happen. I'm pretty sure he was told where to take us, which was to see five or six small churches in the town. I would say that this part was catered more towards the elderly (who, to be fair, did make up a large portion of our group). Josh and I were so thirsty in the heat by this point that we decided we'd had enough by the fourth church and took our free time early. This was definitely a good call as it turned out we would have had to walk by all those churches anyway.

Josh found a lovely little restaurant within the town gates called Cesare's - definitely no complaints from me here. We enjoyed our pizza/pasta lunch and felt revitalised after a cold drink in the sweltering heat. I also loved that they gave one receipt per person so that no-one feels obliged to pay for the whole thing. Very progressive Montenegro, I like it! After dinner I was very excited to find the Cat Museum as I read about it on Atlas Obscura, but sadly we couldn't find it. This is when we wished the tour guide had told us about something other than churches. We did find many cats and a very aesthetically-pleasing clock in the main square though, so we stopped for some gelato.

We met back up with our original tour guide at the car park around 3.15pm but the coach didn't arrive til gone 3.45pm. In the Balkans it gets super hot around 3-4 o'clock so this was the worst time to be standing around with our warm water. However there is only one main road in Montenegro so we understand any traffic couldn't have been helped. I'll go quickly through our journey back - we stopped at a small port town to cross the sea and cut out a long portion of the road, then the bus crossed the sea by ferry. Later of course we had to wait to cross both borders again so this was maybe another 40mins - 1 hr wait.

• Euros. Although Montenegro isn't in the EU yet it has already adopted the Euro. This is very important to remember if you're crossing from Croatia like us, where the national currency is Kuna.
• Water. Bring your own water bottle - preferably a "keep cool" one!
• Sun-cream - you'll more than likely need a top-up.
• Possibly a visa depending on your nationality (that's all Tui would say).
• A plan. Montenegro isn't on many "Go Roam" mobile network schemes so if you accidentally leave it on here it could be expensive! This means no Google maps, unless you bring a print-out from home or download an offline map.
• A passport. Make sure you don't forget it - the coach won't make exceptions and you'll definitely be asked to leave the bus.