Cetinje, Rijeka Crnojevica

As we drove up the steep, twisty mountain road, the view back to the coastline, including the little island town of Sveti Stefan, and the peninsula town of Budva, was phenomenal. The coastline is very jagged, with little inlets and harbors.

Cetinje, at one time was the capitol city of this area. Cetinje is an old town, there are many old one-story row-houses, and a large rusty-pink palace-like building. One statue is for Yugoslavs who moved to America, and were killed when their ship was sunk by a mine, as they returned to fight in WW I.

We followed the narrow road toward Rijeka Crnojevica, to see the special bridge. The road was so narrow, the camper was brushed by tree branches on both sides. The curves were so sharp we could hardly follow them, and so steep we wonder what we’re doing here, but the road surface was excellent.

After driving for several miles we knew this road just couldn’t go anywhere of interest, so we started to turn around. In the midst of our U-turn, a large truck arrived on the scene. I showed the driver the picture of the bridge in Rijeka Crnojevica, and he indicated we were going in the proper direction. We soon met a taxi and the driver indicated just one more kilometer, and we would be there, and he was right.

Rijeka Crnojevica and its bridge was well worth the effort. Well, it really wasn’t much effort, just a bunch of miles on a good road we weren’t sure went anywhere. The stone bridge is about six feet wide, with steps and a walkway, there are two large and one small arch, and it’s most appealing. On the far side of the bridge, the footpath is elevated above ground level, as if to protect it when the little stream overflowed its banks.

The lady at the stream-side cafe in Rijeka Crnojevica was just delighted to see a picture of “her” bridge in the guide book. As we left the town, we stopped for directions at a large building, and found it’s a fish factory, several miles from the shores of a very large lake, called Skadarsko Jezero.

We decided to look again for the little fishing village of Golubovic that we saw the other day. But to our surprise, in the sunshine, it didn’t look nearly as nice as we remembered it in the rain. We continued over the high mountains on the pigtail road sticking “out over nowhere.” The Adriatic Sea is a tough drive over the mountain, way over that-a way.