Kotor
We left Croatia today to go to Montenegro. It is only about 45 minutes from Dubrovnik to the Montenegro border, and of course we sat in the line for a while to change countries. Because we are outside the Schengen area every border crossing is an ordeal, and usually there are two crossings—one out of the first country and then a couple hundred yards later one to get into the new country. It makes me miss going across the borders in the Schengen countries where there is just a sign saying you are crossing the border, sort of like going between states.
Our first stop in Montenegro was the town of Herceg Novi. We parked on the street and walked to the Kanli-Kula Fortress. It was early in the day and we were the only ones there, so the kids got to run around and explore the old fortress.
The best part of the fortress is that it is apparently a stage for concerts, and the background of the stage is stunning! The kids put on a play for us where Zoey was a princess fairy knight, Ronin was a zombie and then a ghost, and Willow was a unicorn butterfly. It was interesting, to say the least. I can’t imagine actually going to a concert held here.
We took a walk through the old town streets of the town. I love walking the towns that are build right on the water. The church in the middle of Belavista square was very quaint.
The coolest part is that when we were in the town square by the bell tower a band came and set up! There were some in formal outfits and some in marching band outfits, and kids probably five years old through middle-aged adults (one who was smoking while playing the bass drum). They played some songs and then the pom pom girls marched down and performed for a few songs. The kids loved this, and Willow was super excited. They must have played a few patriotic songs since a lot of the audience started singing along.
We continued our drive around the Bay of Kotor and I got some beautiful pictures of the bay from out the car window. Our next stop was Perast and the island of Our Lady of the Rocks. The view of the bay is absolutely gorgeous, and we parked and walked down to the small boats which took us over to the island. There is another island, Saint George, that has an old abandoned monastery. I am not sure if boats stop there or just drive around it, but we did not go to that island.
Our Lady of the Rocks is a man-made island that was created in the 15th century because a sailor found an icon of the Madonna and Child on a rock in that location. The townspeople and sailors dropped shiploads of rocks in that spot and even skuttled boats full of rocks there. Even now, twice a year the villagers fill up their boats with rocks and drop them at the island. We walked around the small island, went to the lighthouse and inside the small chapel, and took pictures until the boat came to take us back to land.
Once on land we walked through the town of Perast, which took only a few minutes because the town is less than half a mile long. In the small church there was a guitar duet practicing and we got to hear the end of their practice session. I also liked the line of laundry set out in front of another church.
We got back into the car and drove to Kotor. This is a small walled city, and we had the afternoon and evening to explore. We were lucky to find a public parking spot, and instead of going to the apartment first we decided to explore the city a bit. The biggest thing I wanted to do is to climb up the city walls. This is way different than walking the walls in Dubrovnik. The “walls” start as attached to the city, but you can see they zigzag up the mountain behind the city.
Our first stop of the walls was the small Church of Our Lady of Remedy, which you can’t go in. This was already pretty high up, and Willow didn’t want to go any farther. JonPaul and Willow sat and played outside the church while I took the other two up to the San Giovanni castle ruins. It was over 1,350 stone steps up to the castle! I made it up there but it was tough. I really need to get into better shape; I want to be able to do more hikes like this!
The walk down was definitely easier, and we picked up JonPaul and Willow once we got back to the church, which is about two thirds of the way down.
Beside the northern gate is an open square with the Church of St. Mary and a cat sanctuary area. There were cats everywhere, and an old woman who takes care of them and feeds them. We spent a good amount of time here petting and holding cats, and I love the picture of JonPaul with the cats just hanging out chilling with him on the park bench.
We walked through the town, which didn’t take long because it wasn’t very large. It was pretty empty and I have lots of pictures of alleyways and plazas with absolutely no one around. The Seagate had two cannons in front of it, and the kids of course had to climb all over them.
We ate dinner in a restaurant in a cellar which had some cool décor. There were huge drippy wax candles (I don’t think they were actually in use) and the restaurant looked like an old kitchen. I also like the picture that I took of the same small square both during the day and at night; it shows how they light up the towns at night.
We tried to find our apartment, which ended up being quite an ordeal. The coordinates and address given to us were not correct, so we ended up walking around in the dark for over a half hour trying to find the apartment. Since we couldn’t get internet without WiFi, I eventually found a restaurant that let me use their WiFi code and messaged the apartment through the booking.com reservation. The woman came and got us to take us to the apartment, which was no where near where the address said. By now the kids were tired and just ready to go to bed! However, she told us we would have to go to the office in the middle of the town for the registration of tourists to have our passports checked and pay the tourist tax. In every place we have been before the apartment owners or hotel have taken care of this; we have never had to do this ourselves. Of course by this time the place was closed so we would have to try to get back early tomorrow in order to do it. We asked about parking, and the woman told us that our car was fine where it was for the night and when we got back tomorrow after our road trip she would let us know where to park for that day. However, when we got back the next day she told us that we had a reserved spot for the day we came in to town but since we moved the car we would no longer have a spot and we would have to find a paid spot a few blocks away. Although the apartment was cute and fit our needs, we would not recommend staying here because of all the misleading information. Anyway, that is enough of my complaining about our accommodations in Kotor!
