Kotor, Montenegro - Part 2
42°25'14"N, 18°46'5"E
The last of the cats…
Slow travel is all the buzz. For us, slowing down was a necessity and Kotor seemed like a good place to hang around for a while. We stayed in our small coach house adorned with relics from time gone past in Crna Gora. We had a big stack of firewood, an epic cast iron grill, neighborhood cats that provided hours of entertainment, and church bells that reliably kept track as the hours drifted away. We made good friends with the server at the cafe in town and the guys at the grilled meat place. Days not filled with moving epic amounts of project work were showered in sunshine and filled with adventures that usually included scaling a mountain.
It was also Krystal’s forty-first birthday. Lucky for us, the best krempita in the whole world is at Forza Cafe inside of the fortress walls in Kotor. Imagine, crispy layers almost like a pita floating between luscious cream. At Forza the krempita crackles and the espresso macchiato is the magical cake’s perfect pair. The cake was truly a special event because we kicked processed sugar and processed carbs to the curb about a month ago. Easy to do in a country with loads of grilled meat. Mary wrapped a few select gifts in the advertisement flier from the local grocery store and we celebrated another year of wisdom.
Our mountain wandering included an adventure to the top of the fortress walls and another trek up to the goat cheese house. It is important to note that spring means baby goats and they get first priority for the precious milk used for cheese the rest of the year. The wild collection of cats made up for the lack of cheese and we watched in great amusement as the newer tourists learned of their ferocity the hard way. Cats are really cute in the rest of the world. The cats here are cute too, but local legend says they came in with the sailors and they still sort of have an air of survival to them wrapped in a cute fur coat.
Our last hurrah included a trek up forty one switchbacks ascending a little over 2,500 feet to check out Fort Vrmac, an Austro-Hungarian fort established in 1860. Mary said it was Krystal’s “over the hill” party. The hike was stunning and took us through pine forest on a fortified stone path lined with an abundance of white sage. When we made it to the top we were greeted by a parking lot and many cars. We hiked on a Saturday and many folks had the BBQ fired up and music going among the ruins and farm houses teetering between Tivat and Kotor on the top of the limestone ridge. We wandered past the pigs and chickens to the abandoned fort. The place is totally haunted. In a really creepy way. You can go in, they just say to take a flashlight and use caution as “much of the floor is missing.” We stood at the door and decided it was hell no for us. Deciding instead to walk the perimeter where Mary quickly came upon giant spikes coming from the ground. The brutality of war is truly so close and visible in this place.