European Road Trip Diary.

Most spontaneous idea that turned into the best and must needed getaway.

Every trip we have ever gone on was well planned - hotels, restaurants etc. However, our plans changed quickly after our flight from Greece was delayed due to hurricane in Texas. Sitting at the airport and not knowing our route due to the tragedy seemed like a wrong thing to do, so we decided to extend the trip, cancel the original flights and stay in Europe for another week. 

Changing flights wasn't as easy as we thought as we didn't know where to go. Athens airport in Greece isn't your typical airport, it's a local spot with not many direct options to other countries. Croatia has been on top of our list so we decided to book a flight to there and check it out. "Hotels tonight" had pretty good last minute deals and it wasn't too hard to book a hotel - the only problem was we knew nothing about the country, cities nor did we know the areas to stay in. Luckily, Dubrovnik ended up being our go-to spot and we just decided to take a risk and book a room there for a night with no plan for a day ahead. Thankfully the flight was short, the ride to the hotel was beautiful and most importantly everyone spoke perfect english - we felt like we have made a right decision and there could be no better place to do this spontaneous trip. For some reason the getaway felt almost too perfect and wasn't spontaneous enough so we decided to rent the car and go explore the countries around. 

Croatia -> Bosnia and Herzegovina

Renting a car is pretty easy as the concierge services at almost every hotel offer a company that rents out automatic cars. You can literally have it within a few hours. We woke up in the morning, strolled through the town, got a massage, ordered the car and were shortly on our way to the first destination - Bosnia and Herzegovina. The roads are pretty tiny and have only one lane going each way (they call it a highway, I call it a teeny, tiny street lol). We didn't want to go too deep into the country as it was not only far but we knew nothing about the country and didn't know which areas are the best to go to. We crossed the border within the next 30 mins after leaving Dubrovnik and entered Bosnia. The town we stopped in was called "Mostar" with the population of just under 100K people. It was filled with cute local restaurants, kiosks and beautiful nature. We strolled around, got lunch and were back on the road to Montenegro. 

Travel tip: Unless you plan on going all the way to the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina staying a night in this country isn't worth it as towns are pretty small and you can see it all within just a few hours. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina -> Montenegro

Montenegro was just another country we knew nothing about where we pointed a finger at a price, city and booked a hotel for the night - we literally had no idea where we were going nor what it was going to look like. The roads to Montenegro were extremely windy and had many cars on it as we got closer to a town called Kotor we passed this beautiful town with gigantic hotels and beautiful restaurants which right away reminded us of France with a feel of Dubai. That only meant one thing - we were going to come back to this town after we make it to Kotor and extend the stay to check this spot out. 

Just a few hours later we made it to Kotor and were extremely surprised to find out that our hotel was located in fortress! Yes, a real fortress! I felt like I was in a movie scene that I didn't want to leave. I was shocked that no one has ever talked about Montenegro as a beautiful destination that should be on everyone's bucket list. We spend the entire evening walking around checking out shops, history of fortress, and exploring the history of this beautiful town. As much as I have tried to capture the beauty of Kotor it was extremely difficult as on the photos and videos it looked like a small castle filled with restaurants and shops, you simply have to go there to experience it and see it all yourself. 

After spending the night there and enjoying breakfast with a view of castles and history we decided to start heading back towards the "fancy" town we passed on the way to Kotor. 

Kotor is just under 40 mins away from Porto Montegro which was a short and sweet ride with beautiful views all around. When we got out of the car we were absolutely in shock about what we saw - billion dollars worth of yachts (Like hundreds of them), insanely beautiful hotels and buildings and best of the best restaurants all throughout the town. I mean, even the wifi was free when you were walking around town - all because Dubai's government owns this town and is providing it to all tourists. Porto Montenegro is absolutely worth checking out and staying for a night or even two. 

Montenegro -> Croatia

It was the most brutal drive everrrrr. We got stuck on the border for just under 4 hours due to a local fire which happened to be right above the border. This goes back to my original tip that having an automatic car is an absolute must as a stick car will make your ride miserable in the traffic on the hills. A local we met suggested we leave early morning but we didn't listen and left in afternoon, if you will be taking this route make sure to leave early morning or late evening.