Kotor, Montenegro
42°25'14"N, 18°46'5"E
Cats and goats and friends from Chicago!
The distance from Palermo, Sicily to Kotor, Montenegro is a little under 600 miles. It is comparable to the distance from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco, California. Far, but not anything too wild. The night before we embarked on our grand adventure to Kotor a fellow dinner guest said “take the ferry to Montenegro.” Ah! A FERRY! A little too late for this trip. Instead we took a plane to Memmingen, Germany; another plane to Zagreb, Croatia; and yet another plane to Dubrovnik, Croatia; and finally a taxi from Dubrovnik to Kotor, Montenegro. It took us over 14 hours to make the journey.
Mary commented that we had crossed through a portal to a completely different way of life. She was absolutely right and we are grateful for the rattle to our perceived means of transportation.
We originally planned to spend some time in Croatia and then they joined the Schengen area on January 1, 2023. For those who are unfamiliar, a US passport buys you some restrictions in many European countries specifically if they are a part of the Schengen area. We have been gone long enough to bump up against the restrictions and had to head out. The entire town of Kotor, Montenegro is a UNESCO Heritage Site so we decided that would be a pretty awesome spot to hunker down for a bit. Unbeknownst to us, the city was under the control of the Venetian Republic from 1420 - 1797. This historical marker gives the city streets qualities that are reminiscent of Venice only with giant fortress walls built straight up the side of mountains instead of canals.
The city is also known for its domineering population of cats!
Legend has it that sailors brought cats to Kotor from all over the world and the folks in town celebrate the cats because they keep the mice, rats, and snakes in check. There are cats everywhere here! One of them is making her home in our hearts. They are a hilarious bunch and every adventure in town, or even just outside, is filled with cat antics.
We would be remiss if we neglected to mention the most epic part of Montenegro. Sara and Aaron! Our dear friends from Chicago flew ALL the way here to hang out for a week! Sara and Krystal have a pretty solid track record of bringing epically bad weather to wherever they gather in the world: Kona low in Hawaiʻi, days of rain in Joshua Tree, the epic storm that smashed the windows out of the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago - yup we were trying to have a picnic… It is an absolute gift to have people in your life that will go to the end of the earth to hang out even if the weather never cooperates. We had days of rain, but also days of delicious and warm sunshine. Interesting restaurant escapades were punctuated with epic home-cooked meals. One evening included an abrasive visit to the butcher shop and resulted in a glorious pot of goulash. Then Mary fired up the cast iron grill and we ate an entire kilo of ćevapčići, a form of Balkan meat sorcery inspired by the rebels and freedom fighters during the Ottoman Empire. Our meat-powered adventure comrades joined us on some epic feats against gravity!
Adventures not strewn with cats sent us directly uphill into the bosom of long-haired goats who skillfully tip toe across the craggy walls of the black mountains. One can walk the Fortress walls all the way to the top and admire the time-tested engineering. The city of Kotor was never conquered, so these walls have served as an impenetrable force since the 9th century BC. We noticed that the steps are easiest to traverse when moving at almost a running pace and watched in awe as locals floated up and down the 1,400 steps.
Across the river that runs just outside of the ramparts is a collection of switchbacks called the “Ladder of Kotor.” Google Maps showed a goat cheese house near the top, so we set out with the goal of being met with goat cheese and a drink at the top knowing that off-season may have left us nursing the ends of our water without any promised prize. We are elated to report that there is absolutely goat cheese and the goats will hike all the way up WITH you! In fact, it was the best goat cheese we have ever eaten. This is likely due to the diet of wild oregano, wild mint, and pomegranates. Seriously, it is a magic wonderland around here.
According to a quick Google search there are roughly 37 million churches in the world. There is no shortage of them in Kotor! Except the churches here are really extra super old and you can wander in, over the rubble, because lawsuit culture has yet to take hold in this part of the world. The churches here are smaller than the ones we have been wandering around in Italy. Smaller means mightier bell sounds. In fact, the place we are staying at is almost in the backyard of a smallish church where the bell tower is in line with our bedroom window. The bells ring 150 times at 6 am meaning we are up early..which is good because the internet is really slow and file uploads take a while.