Kotor is a seaport town, in the Kotor bay on the coast of Montenegro.

We arrived early, just before sunrise, so I got up and watched our arrival into the bay through the narrow Verige strait which leads from the Adriatic into the bay.

The mountains, which surround the bay, are tall and lined with limestone cliffs which are very spectacular, especially at sunrise.

We had a very quick breakfast this morning (Note for self: scrambled eggs are much better at the buffet at 7am then 10am) and then we went ashore into Kotor by tender which only took a few minutes.

We met our guide, Stephan quite easily at 8am at the port gate. Stephan is a young local man who has a family history in tourism, with both his father and grandfather being tour guides in Kotor. His English was excellent and he had in fact completed a degree in tourism and is currently finalizing his masters.

To start, Stephan showed us around the old walled town of Kotor. The stone wall that surrounds the town is quite amazing. They spent over 1000 years  building it (Yes 1000, not a typo) and it is five kilometers long, going up and around the hill behind the town. How they ever lugged the building materials up there is beyond me!

We then looked at the local town market, saw lots of in-season produce such as  pomegranates, raw olives, and many varieties of mushrooms, both fresh and dried. We also saw plenty of fish, both salt water and fresh water varieties which are all caught close to here. The fresh water rivers that flow down the mountains into the costal sea are full of trout according to the fishmonger who chatted to us about his products in broken English.

This area is also very famous for their mussels. Mussels need very clean, still, cool water to grown in and the environment here is just perfect. The water is amazingly clear – having come down the mountains through the porous limestone.

Our tour continued with a drive around the bay to the village of Perast. From there we took a boat across to the tiny man-made island holding the church ‘Our Lady of the Rocks’. It has a very interesting story… read it here if you are interested.

We then returned by boat to Perast where we posted a couple of postcards and then were driven back, via some tiny bay-side roads, to Kotor.

Stephan and the driver left us in Kotor and even though it was raining we had another explore of the old city, including lunch at a little restaurant specializing in mussels. Dave had a ‘hamburger’ (meat patty on chips) and I had the most incredibly fresh tasty  bowl of mussels. They were simply (see that theme!) cooked in white wine and garlic. Yum, yum yum. All the juices were mopped up with some excellent flat bread, warm from the oven. Did I say they were yum… because they were the best thing I have eaten on this trip!

And I had a gelato. One euro, for one scoop of white chocolate. It too was very good.

I’ve left this bit to last, because it will interest some more than others.

Victoria, this is your sort of place. History, old buildings, beautiful seaside, shopping, good food and…

CATS!

There are cats everywhere and in fact Kotor is known for the ‘Cats of Kotor’! (click here to see why) There is even a cat museum here, but I couldn’t convince Dave to go.

I took a few photos for you princess, and may have bought you a couple of small gifts, if you’re good 😉

 Note the one sitting on Dave’s shoe as we ate lunch!

We are now back on the ship, I have had a massage (It was therapeutic – for the headache!), we have had a pretty good dinner and now we are resting (read Sara on internet, Dave asleep). We might head out for a little casino visit and a cocktail or two soon… or we might just both go to sleep!

Tomorrow is a ship day as we head for Malta. We are in the open sea now and there is a bit of rocking – which we both love!

Does anyone know why Dave was particularly keen to go to Malta? I’ll let you know when we get there if you can’t work it out 🙂

p.s. My editor is asleep. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors.