Kotor, Montenegro

April 5, 2023

After our unscheduled two and a half sea days (in which I did nothing but rest), we finally made it to Kotor. A port first settled by the Ancient Romans, it was fortified by the Emperor Justinian in 535. It is a triangular shaped walled city. In fact, our ship’s tour for the day took us first to another walled city, Budva, which is one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic coast.

Our bus drive to Budva took us through tunnels under mountains and along a valley to another point on the coast where Budva was located. There was an ominous sticker on board which proved to be false advertising.

Kotor is on an inlet on the Adriatic and there was no direct path to Budva along the coast. It was a dreary-ish sort of day as these pictures will indicate. At least it didn’t rain. The walled city of Budva lies on the coast in the middle of a more modern area, although development has been halted in some places due to archeological finds.

You can see the gate into the city in the next to last picture.

Old Budva is a charming city of narrow streets and alleys, medieval ramparts and 15th century towers. After a short tour, we were set free to wander.

There were a lot of quirky displays and signage around. I especially appreciated the mannequin torso displaying the designs available at the tattoo shop.

We wandered onto the beach to get a view of the coast line.

Before heading back to the bus, we stopped at a cafe recommended by our tour guide to have a hot tea and a cup of coffee. The host was quite gracious and kept trying to get us to try a piece of his cake. We finally caved, and out came a very large piece of some type of fruit and whipped cream cake. We didn’t know what it was, but it was delicious. We tasted fresh pineapple, tart cherries and maybe peaches. Everyone from our tour, who took the host up on his cake offer, received the piece of cake for free.

Back on the bus, we returned to Kotor. There were some interesting sights along the way.

Once in Kotor, we got ready for our tour in the walled city. We toured some of the squares and saw a cathedral. Kotor was built like a maze for defensive purposes, so it is easy to get turned around. Our tour was going to the Maritime Museum next, however we (along with several others) left before that to explore and get some lunch.

It was a little chilly, so we were looking for a place we could eat inside. We stumbled upon Pronto Pizza which had a very small seating area inside a very old building. A couple were just leaving as we got there and they told us the pizza was good. We took their seats. They were correct. The pizza was very good which isn’t surprising when you consider that Kotor was part of the Venetian Empire for 500 years. Consequently, there is a strong Italian influence in the city. I wanted to try the local version of prosciutto and my pizza came covered in it. It was the best I’ve ever had. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of our pizzas, but I did get them of the table condiments and Brian’s local beer.

After lunch we stopped at the local market outside the city walls. There were numerous stalls selling fresh produce, the dried ham (prosciutto) and the local brandy. We bought some prosciutto and a small bottle of the brandy to try. Our guide swore that doctors said to drink a small glass of brandy in the morning for your health. We didn’t do that, but we did share it with our friends over dinner one night. I thought it was quite good.

The sail into and out of Kotor is exceptionally scenic and, since we didn’t really see it in the morning, we decided to go on deck after dinner and watch it as we sailed away. It was windy and chilly but totally worth it.

Also, the cats of Budva and Kotor:

We would really love the chance to be able to explore more of these Balkan countries. Our return wishlist is getting quite long!