Last week we made the drive from Russia to Montenegro. We traveled in two cars with our friends Sergei and Christina and their twin girls. Here is a photo record of the trip. (You can see a slideshow/video of a previous trip here).

We started early in the morning from dacha in Russia. Sergei said his goodbyes to Olga’s grandfather, Orest Grotten.

Olga posed for a portrait with her grandparents, Orest and Ludmilla

Orest said goodbye from the kitchen window

We packed up our cars and headed out!

The sun came up as we headed South, past Pskov to the Latvian border.

We got fuel (cheap in Russia) just before crossing the border

And we had a three-hour wait for the border crossing, the Russian side took a long time, the Latvians were quick. How to fill the time but to do your hair?

And this greeted us as we entered Latvia

She’ll kill me for this when she’s a teenager; Valerie fell asleep mid-munch–

And in no time we were in Lithuania:

A picnic lunch along the way

And next was Poland; here’s what you see each time you enter a country (speed limits are in km/h)

Another rest stop; it’s funny that we have a Dodge Caravan and a Chrysler Voyager. The Dodge came from the US several years ago and the Chrysler is the European version (diesel with a 5-speed manual transmission).

A Polish portrait

We spent the night in Biaylostok and continued on our way.

And then we are in Slovakia

We drove through Central Slovakia, through the Lesser Carpathians

Next is Hungary, but we drove through it in the dark, so you get to see what we saw:

We crossed into Serbia late at night and got a hotel. The next day we started by driving through Voivodina down to Belgrade, crossing the Danube River near Novi Sad:

And we got into the mountains south and west of Belgrade

If you look closely, you’ll see the remnants of an old fortress wall on this hilltop:

And then into Montenegro, the Black Mountains

Wearing my hat!

So we arrived in Montenegro after three long days, about 2500 kms covering eight countries. I’ll post some videos from the trip soon.