Kotor

Day 462 (October 3, 2019) – Kotor, Montenegro

Montenegro kept surprising us. Budva was beautiful, but Kotor might have been even more so. Kotor was only a short bus ride up the coast and while it didn’t have the beach appeal of Budva, it had some spectacular scenery and a really charming walled town. It was a nice place to spend some time.

We also learned very quickly that Kotor is a popular stop for cruise ships. There was a dock right across the street from Old Town and if the ships were too big they would drop anchor right in the middle of the bay. Although as luck would have it, we saw Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam anchored off shore when we first arrived. This was the same boat that we would be taking from Rome to Florida in four weeks. It was a strange reminder that the end of our trip was near, but we were looking forward to it. Both the thought of heading home and the cruise ship experience sounded appealing. It might be surprising that we felt a need for decompression, but being stuck on a boat for two weeks with no where to go and no travel plans to arrange sounded wonderful.

The Nieuw Statendam in the Bay of Kotor. The very same boat that was going to take us home from Europe.

One of the first things we did after getting to Kotor was to go for a walk along the shore. The waters from the Mediterranean enter the Bay of Kotor through a narrow channel. The bay opens up to a significant size and on all sides is surrounded by steep mountains. It was really quite picturesque. All along the shores of the bay are small towns and rows of restaurants and other touristy things. We stopped for a light lunch at one of the bay-side restaurants. We both got salads, but I had to laugh at Travis’ salad. It was called a garden salad or something like that, which consisted of a pile each of tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers on a stone board. It wasn’t even in a bowl. He didn’t seem to complain, but I thought it was a bit strange. We returned to this restaurant and the others next to it for happy hour most nights. We’d grab a beer and watch the cruise ships slowly leave the bay before we’d find a place for dinner.

Salads for lunch, which for Travis was literally just a pile of vegetables. 

We walked through Old Town a few times during our stay. It’s an old walled city from the time when Venice controlled this part of the Mediterranean. Built right on a hill, there are staircases and alleyways all over the place. Lots of restaurants and shops, as well. The crowds in town were entirely dependent on the cruise ships. Kotor’s Old Town was larger than Budva’s, but it’s still not that big of a place. During the day it would be packed with people from the cruises, yet at night it seemed deserted after all the ships had left. There was an inexpensive pasta restaurant in town that we went to a couple times and always seemed to hit the spot.

The wall of Kotor's Old Town.

We got up early one morning and went for a hike. After all this traveling it’s become almost an instinct to see a mountain and think, how do we climb it? There must be a view! We started in the morning when it was still nice a cool, but the heat did arrive later in the day. We took our time. It had been a very long time since we’d gone on a real hike. Other than our constant crisscrossing of cities on foot, the last time we climbed a mountain was probably all the way back in Georgia. There was a stone fort part way up that we were hoping to enter. I guess it used to be the case that entry from the top was free if you climbed all the way up there, but when we were there an angry guy was yelling at people that you couldn’t do that anymore. The paid entrance was at the base of the mountain on the other side. Needless to say, we never made it inside the fort, but we continued climbing up the mountain way above it. When we made it to the top we took in the view and had some snacks before making our way back down again. It was a really nice hike, but it was also a beautiful day out, and that can make all the difference.

An old church behind the hilltop fortress.

Part way to the top.

A random cat we met along the way. 

Our final view before heading back down. 

On our last night in Kotor we were feeling a bit nostalgic for normalcy, so we ordered a pizza for take-out, picked up a couple beers, and streamed some shows and movies back at our apartment. Kotor was our last stop in Montenegro. We had only been in the country for a week, but it is on my list of places I would like to return to one day. I’d like to explore more of the coast, and I would definitely like to make it up to the higher altitudes and spend some time in those stunning mountains we saw on our train ride from Belgrade.