Today was the first of three hard days in a row. And it was hard, at least for me. 120Km and 4,800 feet of climbing. Plus, we had rain nearly all day. We are now in Montenegro. We crossed the border at about 38 Km into the ride. The crossings go very smoothly. I show them my passport, they read it into their computer, stamp it and I am on my way. This is our third country and tomorrow will be our fourth.
Our day started with some false hope that the rain had finally moved on and indeed, for the ride in Albania we had no rain. That part of the ride was easy, mostly flat, and like I said, dry. Much of the riding in Albania has been in areas that, while pleasant, were not particularly interesting. It is hard to describe what I mean so I stopped at a random location and took four pictures as I rotated to give you an idea of what I mean. Pleasant but not exceptional. As I approached the border with Montenegro there was a huge lake visible just below the road. I took pictures of the lake from both countries. Once I crossed the border the ride changed in two significant ways. First, it started to rain and second, mountains.
The rain continued for the remainder of the ride, sometimes light, sometimes coming down in buckets. The climbs were hard and with the rain I didn’t take any pictures except for a church at the top of the mountain. I will take some tomorrow since Montenegro is distinct from Albania. For one thing, drivers no longer honk their horns at every occasion. Not a single honk since crossing the border. The other thing is that Montenegro looks much more prosperous than Albania or Greece. There are hardly any abandoned buildings or half finished structures like we saw commonly in both Greece and Albania. The bulk of the housing I have seen so far is single family houses rather than apartment buildings. The houses are very well maintained and have nice landscaping. The roads have been well paved if not quite as wide as I would prefer. In general, the country makes a nice impression and the countryside with the huge mountains is beautiful.
We are in Niksic which is a fairly large city about halfway across the country. Tomorrow we cross the rest of the country and head into Bosnia where we will b e for several days.
