It didn't take long to notice that we had left Albania. The roads were smoothly sealed and there were street signs and streets had names.
We drove along the beautiful coast road from Bar to Budvar. On the way, the bus was stopped and the driver fined for not having some documentation.
The station at Budvar was well organized with lanes and barriers. We could see the female touts on the other side of the barrier ready to pounce on us. We went with a lady, called Stayna, to her apartment and she showed us her room for rent. It was still really hot so we chose a place with air conditioning.
Stayna lived on the top floor of an apartment block. We took our shoes off and left them at the door. She had one bedroom (which she also rented) with a balcony at the rear and a lounge and balcony at the front facing the sea. The couch in the lounge converted into a narrow double bed so we slept there. She also had a small sofa that converted into a single bed in the same room. we used it as a sofa. We were able to watch TV and see some of the Olympic Games with the commentary in Serbian. unfortunately we didn't see any New Zealand competitors.
Stayna was very nice but didn't speak any English. She slept in in her tiny kitchen on a camp bed. She showed us photos of her 3 adult children who lived in other cities.
Stayna showed us where to find the 10 litre bottles of water to use to flush the toilet, shower and cook with when the water supply was cut off. After the first day we realized that the water was off most of the time and there drums, pails, and various containers of water scattered about the apartment.
The beach was quite pebbly and jam packed with deck chairs, sun loungers, and umbrellas. there were signs saying what percentage of the beach was free space and what was not but it always seemed to us that there was a lot less free space than they said.
Along the beach were bars, cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops and restaurants. Each place pumped out loud music and at night it was difficult to move at all.
Budvar is a popular place for the East European celebrities to holiday and we saw magazines featuring their visits to Budvar- in bikinis, water skiing, paragliding etc.
At a point at the end of the beach was an old walled city. It was flattened by two earthquakes in 1979 and has been rebuilt. Now it houses clothing stores and more restaurants but is very pretty.
At the opposite end of the beach was a bungee jump.
From the apartment balcony we were able to see several fires burning in the hills and then two helicopters with huge buckets dumped sea water on the flames.
