Tivat Airport - Kai Tak of Europe

Had a chance to fly to Tivat, Montenegro. On Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, and Air Baltic. The airport is called the Kai Tai of Europe given the tight maneuvering needed to land there.

It is not a big airport. Outside there's just one cafeteria and bathrooms, and a few rental car kiosks. With just a couple of lights leaving, when I entered the secure zone there wasn't any seats to sit on left, not a single place to sit on the floor, and barely room to stand. No wonder the security checkpoint refused to allow me in too early before the flights :-) 

The official web page of the airport is here.

The fire trucks seemed a bit dated. Or maybe they've just been sitting in the sun, there was no storage house for them:

Airport from above:

Upon leaving, there was a bit of a crowd:

See also my caving explorations in Montenegro, here (alt.link) or here (alt. link).

This article has also been published in Planetcaver.net here. For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Swim by the fires

Another cottage swim, this time by the light fires and a sunset. Wonderful! A bit cold though.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Montenegro swims

A few quick dips into the Adriatic Sea and one hotel pool. Sadly missed a sauna on this visit, had a visit to the hotel sauna lined up but their sauna had closed earlier than the rest of the spa, so missed it on a busy day. Oh well, at least I got a new country to swim in!

The first swim was at the Bigova beach, a tiny spot, just few meters of gravel by the port. But an excellent place to view the sunset and take a dip in the sea! The coordinates are N 42.356315 E 18.704326. More information from Bigova here. I can also recommend the fish restaurant just behind the beach, the Grispolis. One photo at the top of this article, other photos below: 

The second swimming place was Queen's Beach in Pržno, a bit south of Budva. Also called Kralijčina Praža. The coordinates are N 42.263430 E 18.892401. A stellar place to swim at! 

This beach has been a private beach for the spa just behind the beach, accessible to non-guests as well by paying a nominal fee of 120 Euros. The spa had been part of Aman Sveti Stefan Resort. But since five years ago, the spa has gone into bankruptcy or at least is closed, and there are no more security guards or active payment booths, so ... free for everyone! Actually good that way, despite it being sad that the very nice looking spa building and the nearby hotel are not in use. 

More information about this beach here, here and here.

Photos:

There's also a next beach with a similar situation, the Milocer beach also in Pržno. Though I did not have time to swim there, but it was perhaps even better than the Queen's beach. 

This is where the hotel of part of the dysfunctional spa-hotel complex is, and the same deal applies here: you can swim freely! The coordinates are N 42.261094 E 18.892879. 

Photos:

Finally, a hotel swim at Avala Resort & Villas, a hotel in downtown Budva. The coordinates are N 42.278635 E 18.835208. Their website is here. Photos:

Some pictures from the old town of Budva, just next to the Avala:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. No photos of nearby beachgoers have been taken, and the pool photos are taken when the facility is closed or reserved only for me.

Ivanovići Pećina in Bečići, Montenegro

The Ivanovići Pećina is a small, 18-meter cave located east of the town of Budva on the Adriatic Coast of Montenegro. The drive to access the cave is a long one up the hills on narrow roads, then there's a well-marked half a kilometer hike down a small valley and then up to the cave. But it is well worth the trip! The cave is nicely shaped, and the hike offers wonderful views. Indeed, even from the cave entrance you can see the green hills sloping down to the sea, and the coast. Recommended.

The coordinates of the cave itself are roughly N 42.292417 E 18.873830. To reach the cave, turn from up from the coastal main road until you hit the end of the Ive Love Ribara street. Or actually you need to stop a hundred meters before this where there's a closed gate. Find a parking space somewhere... which can be challenging but even further back there's some space that isn't dedicated to the many villas in this area. Having a small car can be beneficial here, the road is very narrow and there is occasional traffic from the other direction.

Once your car is parked, walk to the end of the street by the last house, Villa Old Olive. Just behind the house is a round observation point. There's a path starting from there. However, slightly hidden is the sign for the path to the cave, which is basically immediately down and to the right from the main path. Once you are on this path, you need to choose the righthand side when this path branches at some point. If you keep walking you will soon cross a (typically dry) stream at the bottom of a small valley, and then start climbing up again. In this section the path goes over a rocky section. Somebody could call it climbing but it is easy, I walked both up and down without using my hands at any point. After a while you reach the cave.

The cave is a straight tunnel, couple of meters across and high, and indeed 18 meters long. At the end there's a step change to slightly higher level. I saw a bat at the very end of the cave.

I also 3D scanned the cave. The resulting model can be downloaded here, rotated on your screen here, and the map generated from the model is in high resolution here. A snapshot of the model, the main map parts and a video of the fly-through are below:

More pictures:

A bat at the end of the cave:

Views form the cave:

Path to the cave. Look for this sign 10 meters form the end of the road, or else you are heading to the wrong direction:

My other cave explorations in Montenegro were Vilina Pećina in Dragalj (could not reach it), and Sopot Pećina in Risan. See the articles here and here.

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Sopot, Montenegro

This was the backup cave after the failed trip (alt. link) to find the first one. But what a cave! Sometimes it is a raging tube shooting water at 50 m3 per second out to a waterfall and then free falling tens of meters to the lake. And sometimes it is a dry cave that you can explore. Very interesting! Just make sure you choose the latter time when you go caving :-)

This is an extremely easily accessible cave, it is just by the highway, there's a parking area for the people wanting to view the waterfall and the lake, and then there's concrete steps down to the riverbed from the viewpoint platform so that you can access the cave. Very nicely done. However, I suppose one should be careful to not enter when it is raining or there's a danger of a flood coming out of the cave. Being there at that time would be a disaster, with water shooting out and taking you down the waterfall and the rocks underneath. Not good. Avoid at any cost!

(Photo by Natasa Ravbar from "Recent advances in karst research: From theory to fieldwork and applications", M. Parise, F. Gabrovsek, G. Kaufmann N. Ravbar, Geological Society London Special Publications 466(1):SP466.26, May 2018.)

The cave is 400 meters long, according to Review of the Most Significant Caves in Montenegro by by Mirela Djurović and Predrag Djurović, ACTA Carsologica 50/1, 49-65, 2021. And indeed it is on that list, it really is a significant cave. I explored maybe just hundred meters, however, as I was alone and at that point the cave dipped steeply into a giant hall. The floor was smooth rock, slippery and a bit muddy. I was afraid I'd slip and fall down to the bottom and be unable to get back up :-)

Reportedly there's a lake further in the cave. Would have been very nice to see that!

I did manage to do a 3D scan for the part of the cave that I visited though. The model can be downloaded here, rotated on your screen here, and the generated high-resolution PDF map with vertical cross sections can be looked at here.

The coordinates for the cave are N 42.513616 E 18.681420.

There's also a side cave at N 42.513714 E 18.681695.

There's an easy parking lot on the other side of the road. Well worth the stop, even just for the bridge, lake views, possible waterfall if it has been raining, and, of course, for the cave.

For more information about the cave, read from here. here, and here.

I also managed to visit another cave in Montenegro, reported here.

The entrance from inside and the bridge that you don't want to slide under:

3D model and a map:

Other photos:

Here's the small side cave, with stairs leading to it (!). It seemed to have been used mostly as a toilet...

Kotor fort, few kilometers south of the cave is an interesting sight:

This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. The waterfall photo is from this article and by Natasa Ravbar, licensed under the CC BY 3.0 license.