Eminent Hotel

Take a trip to the seaside or...

by kohltrain

Take a trip to the seaside or up into the mountains, both are only 1.5 hours from podgorica. Also be sure to sample some of the local Crno Vina, or black wine. Singing songs and drinking some of the best wine in the world with my friends at a local cafe.

The Rough Guide to Montenegro

by HORSCHECK

For our 2 week trip to Montenegro, I felt the need to buy a proper guide book for independent travel.

I finally decided for "The Rough Guide to Montenegro - 1st edition", as I have already made many good experiences with Rough Guides on several other trips.

As Podgorica is the capital of Montenegro, the Rough Guide has several pages about the city, including a detailed street map.

Rough Guides: http://www.roughguides.com/

Oh, so this is Montenegro...

by mikey_e

"Not too impressed"

I'll admit it, I had an image of Montenegro from the Daniel Craig James Bond movie - despite what a friend from Nis told me about the movie being filmed in Switzerland. Still, I thought that Podgorica might have some interesting sights, or some neat new government buildings or, frankly, anything that might validate the 8 hours on a small bus it took to get here from Sarajevo. Alas, it was not quite the case. Instead, I found a small city that looked more like a suburb of Tampa than the capital of a European country. It did not take me long to make the decision to spend a night on the bus from Podgorica to Pristina rather than in a hotel here, and I don't regret my decision. Don't get me wrong - I know that this is not the image that Montenegro likes to present to the world (beaches are its speciality) - but I won't hide the fact that Podgorica did not seem like a "major city" at all.

"Still, some fun to be had"

Of course, if your one criteria for enjoy a place is that it be Paris or London, you're never going to be satisfied if you go somewhere other than Paris or London. There were some fun things in Podgorica, chief among them being the cafeteria at the bus station. Talk about a timewarp to the 1970s. This was a pure Socialist-era institution, complete with cauldrons from which greasy goulash was served, a bucket of bread and the surliest servers I have ever met, even in the Balkans. It was like a trip through memory lane, if my life had been a composite of various Russian movies about Moscow in the 1980s. There are also some pretty gardens in Podgorica, much more like woods than the traditional sculpted gardens of other cities. Nevertheless, exciting attractions were few and far between in this city, and I can only imagine that Cetinje or the coast have far more to merit the tourist buzz that Montenegro generates among those looking for cheap and interesting destinations.

"Check out the countryside"

It's awful to end on a sour note, so I will finish off this main page with the one thing about Montenegro that blew me away. The scenery in the countryside, particularly in the mountainous region near Bosnia, is absolutely spectacular. The route in from Sarajevo follows the Piva Gorge - an winding and long crevice carved out of the rock with a lake so blue it makes the neon lights of a Chinese restaurant seem faded. Never before have I seen water of that colour. My only regret is that the bus never stopped along the gorge (probably because there was nowhere to stop) and I wasn't able to get any pictures.

elvis's new Podgorica Page

by sivle12

I was born and raised in Podgorica. I think it is a beautiful place. Podgorica is the capital of Montenegro and it is very close to the beach. Montenegro has some of the most beautiful beach's in the world, and I recommend that anyone that travels to europe visits Podgorica and the beaches close by.