Podgorica

Today Layne and I hitched a ride to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. One of the younger teams was playing a tournament in Podgorica, and Luka told us we were welcome to ride along. Layne and I have been wanting to visit different places and thought this was a good place to start since the transportation was free. We looked up things to see in Podgorica last night so we would be prepared when we arrived. However, as we were searching the web, site after site said that there was not much to see or do in Podgorica. Supposedly a lot of "old" Podgorica got destroyed during WWII. It was okay that there was not a lot to see because we only had about 4 hours there. We wrote down a few things and went to sleep a little earlier than usual.

We woke up at 8:30 which is about 4 hours earlier than any time we had gotten up the previous week. (ooops) Layne and I made an omelet with onions, red peppers, and cheese. It was really good and then headed over to the meeting place. Since the bus was way crowded with the younger girls, Luka let us sit in the front of the bus next to the driver. Podgorica is about 50 km from Bar so it only took about an hour to there, and they dropped us off at one of the places we wanted to see. I’ll let the pictures tell you what we saw on the trip:

Newly built Hristovog Vaskrsenja Orthodox temple (Still a work in progress!)

Ceiling in the Hristovog Vaskrsenja Orthodox temple

 

Skaline (the stairs) where the Ribnica river meets the Morača river

 

View from the old Turkish bridge near the Skaline (would have been pretty, but look at all the trash in the trees and river!)

 

 The old clock tower located in the Old Turkish town called "Stara Varoš" ("old town")

 King Nikola's summer house

 In front of the newly built Millennium Bridge

After seeing almost everything on our list (we couldn’t find St. George’s Church, and we couldn’t find anyone who spoke English along the roads), we texted one of our teammates who goes to college in Podgorica. She was in town to take an exam, and we wanted to see if she wanted to meet up with us for lunch. Luckily she was out of her test and only a few minutes away. We all had personal pizzas for lunch, and I chose one with lots of vegetables (peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and even mushrooms) because I have been missing vegetables. I ordered a medium and it was huge. Layne and I also got a dessert called palacinke. The best way to describe it is as a crepe filled with EuroCrem (half chocolate, half white chocolate) and Plasma (a local cookie) crumbs. Over all, lunch was really good and a nice change because we eat at Palma so often when we are in Bar. As we were finishing our meal, Luka called to tell us they were done and where to meet. We hooked back up with the bus and were back in Bar by 4:30. A successful day I would say.