Greece Montenegro croatia

Send me an email address and I will send you my September itinerary for Montenegro. Maybe you can get something out of it.

If you go to Kotor, Montenegro there is something you need to know. From Kotor there is a certain road that leads away from the bay inland. It goes up the side of a steep mountain and has 25 numbered 180 degree switchback turns and at least 75 other sharp turns. Rock wall on one side and nothing on the other. Can't remember the name or number of the road, but it went to the towns of Njegusi and Cetinje. Don't mean to rain on you parade, but don't want you to get into a hairy situation without any knowledge. If anyone in your party is prone to motion sickness or has a problem with heights you might want to avoid this this road. You can go to bing.com, use the map feature, and see aerial views of the road from &*%$.

Honestly, I don't think 15 days is enough time for those three countries. In the first place, it's going to be difficult to see much of multiple Greek islands in three days since you probably must start and end in Athens for transportation reasons. To hit multiple islands in the three days you'd have to spend a substantial percentage of your time on ferries on dealing with airports, and you may not have time to go far beyond your arrival town on each island. Do you really want to travel that way? And do you not plan to spend any time in Athens itself? The museums and antiquities there are major sights. Truly, going to Greece for just three days seems misguided, given its isolated location.

I suggest just Croatia and Montenegro for your trip. If Greece is actually a must, you could easily spend your entire time there (Athens, Nafplion, a classical site or two on the mainland, Crete, Naxos...), or you could combine Greece and Bulgaria. However, buses and trains throughout the Balkans are slow, and you should figure on covering only about 50 kph (30 mph).

I suggest starting with Rome2Rio.com to see where (if anywhere) rail service might be available to help you move around. The fares and trip durations given are definitely not to be relied on, but if you see that the fast ground transportation will take 17 hours, that tells you something, even if the actual figure is 14 or 20, right? For buses, keep drilling down on Rome2Rio until you come to a link to the website of the companies providing bus service. However, it can be tricky to get completely reliable bus schedule information before you are in-country. Therefore, you should be very conservative in your plans and set up your itinerary so that you are in your departure city well in advance of your departure day. Tourist offices are usually helpful on the subject of bus schedules, but it is smarter to go straight to the source for that information--i.e., the bus station itself. I normally check the schedule for buses to my next destination right after I arrive in each city. Especially on Sundays and holidays, there may be little moving.

For flights within the Balkans, which I think you are going to need, use skyscanner.

You'll save yourself some time at the end of your trip if you fly into and out of different cities. Zagreb might be a possibility in the north; you may find decent connections to get you back home from there.

It is easy to move from Kotor, Montenegro, to Dubrovnik, Croatia, by bus. There are several buses a day. It's always a good idea to buy border-crossing bus tickets in advance, because such buses do occasionally sell out.

The road that Tom is speaking of is P1 and you can see it here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kotor,+Montenegro/@42.4059019,18.777654,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x134c33063d70c91b:0x7a73f15e212e9306!8m2!3d42.424662!4d18.771234?hl=en

We traveled it last year and while it was everything Tom says, it wasn't quite that frightening for us. Tour busses even make the drive; although at times we had to pull over so they could pass us when coming from the opposite direction. Yes, a beautiful trip. More importantly is that along the trip there is a place where they make prosciutto and they will let you into the aging house. We sat outside and ate prosciutto and cheese and beer. Good day all in all.

As for seeing so much in 15 days, in a minute I will send your our 7 day trip of just Montenegro and it doesn't include Kotor Bay because we did that last year. Kotor Bay would add 3 more days to the trip. In that case I would fly into Dubrovnik, spend two nights there then at least one night in Perast, then pick up the tour I just sent you in Budva, then head north and circle around back to the coast and in my case back to Podgorica for the flight on to Budapest. Actually that would be a stunning trip.

That maps says it all, doesn't it?

It's perhaps worth mentioning that folks traveling around Montenegro can visit Cetinje and Kotor without traversing that road. I spent 3 nights in Podgorica, the not-very-interesting capital city, so I could use it as a base for day-trips to Cetinje and Lake Skadar+Ulcinj. Afterward, I took a bus to Kotor, and it did not take the problematic road.

This says it pretty well too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoCeANDedLo about 10 minutes into it he pulls over for the view. Stunning. Worth every minute of the trip. An excellent reason to visit Montenegro now is that Montenegro like Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine are on Russia's "annexation" (or overthrow) list and they may not be quite as easy to visit in the near future.

Thank you for your suggestions. I feel doing all of this in 15days will not help. So, I am planning to pick up one country along with Greece. I am in 2 minds between Bulgaria and Macedonia. Which is worth? Also, I have extended my trip to 18days

Thank you for your suggestions. I feel doing all of this in 15days will not help. So, I am planning to pick up one country along with Greece. I am in 2 minds between Bulgaria and Macedonia. Which is worth? Also, I have extended my trip to 18days

Bulgaria! One of my favorites! Go for it.

I have never been to Macedonia, so I cannot make any sort of comparison for you. I know Lake Ohrid is said to be beautiful.

I liked Bulgaria a lot. I preferred the historic small cities of Plovdiv and Veliko Tarnovo to the capital, Sofia. You might be able to get transportation from Greece to Plovdiv that doesn't require you to go all the way to Sofia if you don't want to. I suspect whichever route you take into Bulgaria will be scenic if you don't choose to fly. I also enjoyed two small towns on the Black Sea, Nessebar and Sozopol, both near the city of Burgas (which I found unexciting, but I might have missed something). However, you might not have time to trek that far east.

There are at least a few other folks on the forum who have been to Bulgaria, and they probably saw more of the country than I did.

Rick has a new video on Bulgaria, available right on this website. There are Greek videos, too.

You'll need a guidebook to help you with many aspects of your trip. Bulgaria, in particular, doesn't have a particularly long recent history of catering to foreign tourists. A lot of the young people speak English, but the tourist infrastructure isn't as developed as what you will find in Greece.

Allow me to repeat that you really don't need to add a second country. Greece is worth more time than part of a 15-day trip. Getting to the islands is time-consuming, and unlike many other European countries, Greece has no fast trains to whisk you rapidly over long distances, so even moving around the mainland will probably take more time than you expect.

Thanks... Please keep sharing your valuable suggestions. I have booked tickets and I have 18days in hand. I am in 2 minds now , whether I should focus on doing Greece completely or adding Bulgaria will do justice to the itenary

Get yourself a detailed Greek guide book that covers a bunch of the islands as well as the mainland. It could be a used book; you don't need this year's edition to read about the sightseeing possibilities.

James E., The name isn't "Tom". But that's ok -- I've been called a lot worse : ).

Oops, sorry TC.

As for Greece, I wasn't highly impressed. Very good, but not, I really, really want to return. But like most things here it's a personal thing. You might have noticed that I take care of the transportation issues by hiring a guide or a car and driver; sometimes both. Bulgaria with a driver/guide costs about the same as France without one. One of the advantages of that part of the world, but things are changing rapidly. We've been to Bulgaria twice now and it's amazing. I suspect we will be back in a year or two. Even Sofia is worth the time. But there you really do benefit from a guide. I'll send you a link to our trip.