1300 Steps for a View isn’t that Bad

Montenegro and the Adriatic Coast

We left Albania and crossed the border into Montenegro, where we headed for the Adriatic Coast. Montenegro translates to Black Mountain and was one of the six republics in Tito’s Yugoslavia. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia they tried to stay a socialist county with Serbia, but eventually they declared their own independence in 2006 via referendum by vote. This is the only one of the former Yugoslavian countries to gain their independence without violence.

The city we were headed to, Kotor, sits on the edge of the Bay of Kotor, one of the most indented areas of the Adriatic Sea. According to the locals, this region was never under the direct rule of the Ottoman Empire (a fact that the people here are more than happy to share with you). Even when the Ottomans ruled the surrounding areas, they found the people of Kotor (part of what was called Old Montenegro) to be innately warlike and uncontrollable and left them to be mainly autonomous. Kotor fell under siege multiple times from the Turks and allied themselves with the Venetians (from 1420 to 1797). The end result is that Kotor has a very different look and feel to it than other areas of the Balkans (one of the most significant is that the population is mostly either Catholic or Orthodox Christian, and not Muslim like many of the surrounding cities and countries).

For our two night stay in this adorable waterfront city, we stayed in apartments a block from the water’s edge. Once you hit the water, it was a nice 15 minute stroll along the promenade to Old Town. Our first evening in town, we only ventured part way down the promenade until we came upon a nice little fish restaurant and enjoyed dinner looking out across the water. 

Kotor was probably the city that Em was most excited to go visit, but she decided that she’d take the fact that I had garnered a cold that was lingering indefinitely and raise the anti to some weird bacteria that laid her out for 30+ hrs. This meant that almost entire day and a half that we were in Kotor, Em was laid up in bed. Zejko thinks that she probably got something from drinking the tap water in Albania. So even though they say that the water there is perfectly fine (and it was for me and a few others that drank it), drink it at your own risk.

Since Em couldn’t enjoy they sites, our fellow Aussie travelers and I did on her behalf. We woke up early so that we could begin climbing the to the top of Saint John’s Castle/Fortress (named after the mountain it sits on), which sits high above the Old Town.

Back in the day, there were only two ways into the town of Kotor; the Bay and the hills (via one road). In order to better protect the city, a fortification system that contained ramparts, towers, citadels, gates, bastions, forts, cisterns, a castle, and ancillary buildings and structures was built around the city. Although the first fortifications in the area were built by the Illyrians a few hundred years before Christ, and a revamp was done by emperor Justinian I in the 6th century AD, the current fortification structure can be attributed to the Venetians, who protected the area for 400 years. 

The forts, ramparts, walls, and gates were all staffed by garrisons, whose purpose was to protect the city from outside forces. Today, the remains of the fortification system and the old town itself (where about 300 people still live) are all recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site and an attraction for the many cruise ships that dock in the Bay on a daily basis and the giant tour buses that come down the new roads. 

If you’re wanting some exercise, and a great view of the entire city and Bay, then a climb up the 1300+ steps to the top of Saint John’s Fortress is a must. We found out that if you don’t want to pay the €8 entrance fee to expend some energy, you can either start climbing before 8am (when it’s nice and cool out) or walk up the switchbacks of the Old Road until you arrive at Saint George’s Church, where you can then hop in the window of the remains of one of the fortresses about 3/4s of the way up the hill. We opted for the former method and hit the steps about 7:30 in the morning.

Along the pathway to the castle at the top, there are some fortresses and storage building remains that you’re allowed to explore at your own risk. Being the adventurous type that I am, I broke off from the pack and climbed the additional steep stairs through these edge buildings for some great views and photographs. This is also how I accidentally found Saint George’s Church and the old road. While exploring, I saw a path that lead to an old church outside what once was a window and noticed that with some minor maneuvering I could reach it; so I did. The church was relatively intact, but empty inside and the frescos mostly obliterated from the walls. As I was headed back in through the window, I met a guy from Malta walking up the road, and looking for the entrance into the fortress.

The view from the top of Saint John’s Castle is grand, but it was was hazy and I actually liked the view from the Church of Our Lady of Remedy (built in 1518), better. This church was located about a third of the way up the steps and is still in use today.

On my way down from the ruins, I noticed people in old time costumes and of course decided to talk to them. It turns out that there is a free adventure that one can do as they climb up. There are four people located along the climb, a coin maker, a blacksmith, a mason, and an architect. Each only gives you a bit of history and assigns you a task (i.e. I had to mint my own coin using an old fashioned mold and a sledge hammer per the Coin Maker) and if you get to the top and do everything, the architect gives you a prize. Unfortunately, I was doing this in reverse because the actors only arrived after I had started my decent, so I missed the architect at the top. It was still neat to get to talk to the other three and I think they were happy someone was curious enough to talk to them. The adventure is free, but it’s not advertised anywhere so everyone just kept walking past.

After my adventure up the mountain, I returned to the apartment to make sure Em hadn’t died in the interim. It seemed the extra sleep had revived her some and she was well enough to decide she wanted to venture into town. As we were getting ready to set out, the others were arriving back from some wandering and apparently the gathering of a picnic lunch, to which we were invited. 

Everyone grabbed some seats and we sat in the lovely courtyard of the apartment complex eating fresh bread, cheese, olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The owner of the complex saw us all gathered outside and contributed a bottle of homemade red wine. It was slightly less sweet than Manischewitz and therefore I was really the only one (Mary said she didn’t mind it) that liked it.

After lunch, Em and I meandered at a snail’s pace towards Old Town. The longer Em was up and about, the worse she started to feel. We made it about half a mile, located a pharmacy, picked up some drugs, and then I sent Em in a taxi back to bed (she pretty much had expended all the energy she had and was done for by that point). So I ventured to Old Town by my lonesome.

I had a bit of time to kill before I was to meet the others for a walking tour, so I purposely got lost within the twisting streets of the old city. I stumbled upon the Cats Museum (of which Louise had previously mentioned) and decided it was worth the €2 to check out. The place is small, but chocked full of postcards, coins, stamps, comics, art, etc with images of cats. Most items in the museum have been donated and your admission fee helps pay for the food and care for the numerous cats around Kotor. Because cats ate the rats carrying the Black Plague in the 1300s, they are considered saviors of the city and revered by the citizens to this day. If nothing else, the magnets with Photoshopped images of Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Queen Elizabeth holding cats were worth the price of admission.

At 4:30, I met up with the Aussies and we had a lovely walking tour of the Old Town area and learned a bunch of additional tidbits about the city (most of the important ones I’ve already stated at various points throughout this post and the rests aren’t important enough to make this post much longer). After the tour, we wandered the ramparts of the Citadel, saw one of the other gates, and then I took my leave from the group to check up on Em once again. 

She had apparently decided not to see if the drugs we’d gotten would kick in before deciding maybe she should go to the clinic and see a doctor. They gave her some saline via IV and more of the same types of drugs we’d already purchased. She looked like death warmed over, but decided she was only temporarily dying.