Day 9 - Saturday, June 22 - Kotor, Montenegro
Sailing into Kotor is like sailing into a fjord, with very steep mountains on both sides of the ship although technically speaking, this isn't a fjord. The town of Kotor is at the very end. The name Montenegro means "black mountains" as this was the appearance of the cypress trees when the Venetians came.
Montenegro uses the Euro for currency although it is not a member of the Eurozone - they decided to use the Euro in order to stabilize their economy which had suffered from very high inflation. At one point there was currency with 15 zeroes!
Kotor is a medieval city that for centuries was part of the Venetian Republic, located on an important trading route to the Levant. In the Venetian time a tall wall was built around the entire city to protect it from attackers, several times the Ottomans.
The first part of our excursion was up a road that has 25 switchbacks in order to get to the top. Much of the road is a single lane although traffic is in both directions. It is quite exciting when we meet oncoming traffic as someone has to find a place wide enough to pull over. We found ourselves holding our breath as we went around hairpin turns that didn't seem physically possible for the bus. Often the bus would be hitting brush on one side while the other side plunged down a thousand feet.
There were times when we were holding our breath.
Our tour guide told us a joke:
A bus driver and a priest died and when they arrived at the pearly gates, St. Peter gave the driver more of a reward than the priest. When the priest thought this was unfair because he was praying all the time. St. Peter replied: "While you were praying, everyone was sleeping. While the driver was driving, everyone was praying"
At the top of the mountain we stopped at a cafe in a village for a drink and snack. Due to its elevation, it is cooler and not as humid as the shore so it is a popular place to visit. One small village has 15 restaurants and a population of 17!
The main stop was to visit the home/palace of the last king of Montenegro, King Nikolas. It is a very modest two-story building but was very elaborately decorated inside. In 1916, Montenegro was conquered by the Austrian-Hungarians and fled to France. After WW I, Montenegro was freed but France did not allow him to return as France was friends with Serbia which wanted to annex Montenegro. Politics! Politics!
We returned to Kotor and entered through the city gate for a short tour of the old city and the Cathedral of St. Tryphone.
As we left Kotor, we passed a small island with the Fisherman's Church. It is said that fishermen prayed to be saved and in return, would create an island for a church - they dropped stones in the middle of the bay until an island was created and then built a church. Today, people celebrate once a year by taking a boat to the island and dropping stones in the water.
Montenegro uses the Euro for currency although it is not a member of the Eurozone - they decided to use the Euro in order to stabilize their economy which had suffered from very high inflation. At one point there was currency with 15 zeroes!
Kotor is a medieval city that for centuries was part of the Venetian Republic, located on an important trading route to the Levant. In the Venetian time a tall wall was built around the entire city to protect it from attackers, several times the Ottomans.
The first part of our excursion was up a road that has 25 switchbacks in order to get to the top. Much of the road is a single lane although traffic is in both directions. It is quite exciting when we meet oncoming traffic as someone has to find a place wide enough to pull over. We found ourselves holding our breath as we went around hairpin turns that didn't seem physically possible for the bus. Often the bus would be hitting brush on one side while the other side plunged down a thousand feet.
There were times when we were holding our breath.
Our tour guide told us a joke:
A bus driver and a priest died and when they arrived at the pearly gates, St. Peter gave the driver more of a reward than the priest. When the priest thought this was unfair because he was praying all the time. St. Peter replied: "While you were praying, everyone was sleeping. While the driver was driving, everyone was praying"
At the top of the mountain we stopped at a cafe in a village for a drink and snack. Due to its elevation, it is cooler and not as humid as the shore so it is a popular place to visit. One small village has 15 restaurants and a population of 17!
The main stop was to visit the home/palace of the last king of Montenegro, King Nikolas. It is a very modest two-story building but was very elaborately decorated inside. In 1916, Montenegro was conquered by the Austrian-Hungarians and fled to France. After WW I, Montenegro was freed but France did not allow him to return as France was friends with Serbia which wanted to annex Montenegro. Politics! Politics!
We returned to Kotor and entered through the city gate for a short tour of the old city and the Cathedral of St. Tryphone.
As we left Kotor, we passed a small island with the Fisherman's Church. It is said that fishermen prayed to be saved and in return, would create an island for a church - they dropped stones in the middle of the bay until an island was created and then built a church. Today, people celebrate once a year by taking a boat to the island and dropping stones in the water.
 |
| Kotor |
 |
| Winding road |
 |
| Kotor city gate |
 |
| Kotor below - our ship is docked to the shore |
 |
| Fisherman's church |
Comments
Post a Comment