Yes I hate cruises. Why? because they dock in nice little places and inundate them with hoards of people. whats worse is because they have been couped up on a ship for days expending little energy, they become over active and quite rude pushing people out of the way to actually see something other than a cruise ship.
Luckily today, i had no intention of going to visit Kotor, but instead planned to visit a town further around the bay called Perast. Perast is like Kotor, but smaller and right on the waters edge. Unfortunately I had to wait for the Bus, just outside Kotor. to make things worse busloads or Germans turned up, followed by busloads of Japanese. Kotor was like a WWII battleground.
I was only too happy to get on the bus and get to Perast. I stopped at a lovely waterfront restaurant for brunch and beer. Nice breeze, on a nice sunny day. There really isn’t much to Perast, but it does have two islands just offshore with lovely churches on them. St George island has a church dating from the 1200’s. Unfortunately you can’t visit that island.
Perast
The other island with the unusual name of Our lady of the Rock has a church on it. The island is actually man made. In 1452 some Venetian sailors found a picture of Mary on a rock and for about 200 years they slowly sunk ships and piled rocks to form an artifical island. They still once a year take rocks out in a ceremony to add to the island. It was nice and pleasant, inside the church is also a museum full of gifts, mostly of silver, because in venetian times, silver was rare and precious.
My piece of tranquility was soon ruined by a large boatload of french tourists. Better late than never I guess. And the French were on the winners side in WWII. Anyway I quickly departed on the next water taxi off the island and returned back to my cosy room in Muo. The cruise ship is gone so my lovely views of Kotor are not spoiled. Its also cooling off a bit so i might go and make an ascent to the fortress that sits above Kotor. Apparently it is only 1350 steps. i’ve included a photo from last night showing the city wall lit up as it climbs the mountain to the fortress. Doesn’t look that far… if you don’t hear from me my body will be lying halfway up the mountain somewhere.
Kotor at night