About hiking the PPT

Roughly between the border with Croatia and the border with Albania, runs the Montenegro Coastal Trail.  This 180km long mountain trail with stunning views on the coast is called the Mountaineering Coastal Transversal, the Coastal Hiking Transversal or the Primorska Planinarska Transverzala. PPT, for short.

I started my hike at Bar, in the south and hiked to Herceg Novi in the north. By starting in the south I first hiked the part with the longest foodcarry. This also resulted in hiking up Subra Amphitheatre with the least weight in my backpack. And: I believe hiking the theatre up is way less demanding than hiking it downhill on the first day of hiking carrying a well-stocked backpack.

The trail
The route is largely marked and there are signposts on major crossings. The less popular and less frequent hiked parts the trail is poorly maintained and overgrown. Sometimes the markers are completely missing. Using the GPS I was able to find my way at these parts – be prepared for a little bushwhacking, though.

Water
The Dinaric Alps are dry mountains: all rain falling disappears directly into the ground. Therefore rainwater is collected in cisterns. Be considerate using this water: other hikers and sheepherds are also counting on it. Although most of the cisterns are old and are no longer maintained, almost all of them contain water.

Only at a few cisterns a bucket (or something simular) is present. So, bring a ‘bucket’ and rope to catch water. I used an empty waterbottle. By adding weight, a stone for example, the thing sinks. Because it is unclear what happened to the water and who or what swam in it (rats, snakes, birds, livestock, either alive or not), I filtered the water before drinking it.

I was surprised by the amount of watersources along the trail! There were even more than I had found out preparing this trip. See the map at the end of this blog for waypoints of all watersources.

Weather
Montenegro summers are hot. Very, very hot. That’s why I hiked the PPT in the relatively cool month of May. I was treated to variety of weather: from hot and sunny to endless showers.

If you’ve read my posts: count on wind, lots and lots of wind. That’s Bora: heavy, suddenly setting in, winds sometimes combined with heavy showers.

Resupply/food

• Stari Bar
  Restaurants and small shops.
  On friday: a small market
• Brajići
  Café/restaurant
  Bus to Budva (nice town for resupply and a zero) or Cetinje (see Balkanviator or Rome2Rio)
• NP Lovćen (Ivanova Korita)
  Hotels/restaurant (I stayed at hotel Monta Rosa)
  Restaurant near Njegoš-monument (open in summer)
  Some food stalls selling local produce
  Restaurant/café at the National Park’s border
• Risan
  Kafana Grkavac
• Mountain huts Orjen en Vratlo (arrange in advance)

More info

• There’s supposed to be a guide – published by the Montenegro Mountaineering Association.
• This blog was helpfull -with a little help from Google Translate 🙂
• This digital guide at Hiking is Good.

Maps

• GPS: the free Open Source-Maps at Openfietsmap or Frikart.
• PDF: old maps (1:25.000) – to be found online. Drop me a line if you can’t find them.
• I also like using the Locus-app (Android) combined with the maps from OpenAndroMaps.

GPS-tracks and waypoints
Download the tracks and waypoints by clicking on the lines on the map.

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