If I were to ask myself, cars would not pass on the lower road through Boka Kotorska. I would almost "drive the bus over there". Because that road is beautiful, it is narrow, but time has overtaken it, cars are getting wider, they hardly pass each other. Everyone would have to drive to a cafe or beach, which makes walking along the coast that way a mission impossible.
That's why, if lucky, that lower road would be closed to motor vehicles, a line would be drawn in the middle, one side for walking, the other side for bicycles and scooters to pass. This could work in excellent conditions, which of course do not exist in Montenegro. Boka Kotorska deserves to be observed, to be enjoyed, and pedestrians and cyclists could do it the most. Car and bus drivers must definitely keep their eyes on the road, open their "four eyes".
However, ah that however which heralds the impossible, as far as I hear from friends who live in Boka, the season has not yet included all engines, and already cars are being printed one after the other. Even in Kalemanj there is a crowd, and it extends to the airport and Stolivo. Everything gets clogged easily and in no time.
It takes considerably longer to travel from Budva to Tivat and Herceg-Novi than before. The road has been widened in several places, but that section is still congested. Either it's a rush, or we've overloaded the system and something is screeching. Or all together. The ferry is a great mystery. Of course, the team has been making money for decades by monopolizing the ferry line, but we could and had to solve that problem smarter, tactically. This way, it's all about nature and coping.
For now, by all accounts, Boka is the most beautiful from the sea. But who has the opportunity and who owns a boat or a yacht, a permit and enough fuel to observe Boka exclusively from that passable side? Rarely, and few of the citizens of Montenegro.
It happened recently that a couple from Canada were riding their bikes along the coast. When the truck came and went astray, the cyclist ran into a pothole, threw him off balance, and ended up in the water. Straight to the mandrake!
Mandrać is a wonderful word, it actually functions as a mini-breakwater. Algae, silt and what Podgorica people would call toadstool often collect there. But that hidden place has its own purpose and story. It serves to protect boats, and in our case, to prevent tourists from falling in. The Canadian was lucky not to run into any rock, boat or tethered motorcycle. He was also lucky that the locals quickly pulled him out and helped him find and retrieve his glasses and phone. Mandrac was good to him this time.
Due to the road works, trucks and buses are finding their way wherever they can get through. Cyclists are smaller, they suffer, as do pedestrians. Not to guess, but what will happen when the season starts, we'll just have to see.
Trucks and buses will certainly destroy smaller roads, and when it's rush hour, any work on the road is equal to an impossible mission and will congest traffic even more.
Obviously, trucks and buses have to go somewhere. But also locals and tourists have to move. At one time, due to fuel shortages, traffic operated on an even-odd basis. Vehicles had the right to move on certain days, depending on whether the numbers on their license plates were even or odd. But the question arises, even if that even-odd rule is introduced, on which days those characters who paid to have their nickname written on their plates instead of the regular combination of letters and numbers will be allowed to drive?
The problem exists, but the solution is not in sight. The season does not ask and arrives. For now, the cyclists are bathing in the mandrake, and what will happen until September, how many people will be holding their necks due to the crowd and priority of passage, whether any more cyclists will end up in the mandrake algae, we have yet to see. Tourists, come here, not every country has the option of driving a cyclist into a car because of a truck rumbling behind him. Maybe that's our specialty this season.
Bonus video:
