Kotor – dramatic scenery and adventure

The Viking Empires of the Mediterranean cruise aims to arrive each morning in port not long after dawn and so, as usual, I’m up on the deck watching and hoping for dramatic lighting and scenery! Sometimes I’m just hoping it doesn’t rain! The arrival into the Bay of Kotor, which is a long and narrow fjord that leads all the way to the city itself didn’t look great! Thick clouds hung over the hills, but at least it was fine. I captured some images of the town and new developments being built along the coastline, but as we got closer to our destination, there were some signs that the weather might improve:

I could just make out the small island that I hoped we would see, and I could see some breaks in the clouds ahead. My fingers and toes were crossed as we moved slowly forwards and as we rounded that bend just ahead, the sun broke through, illuminating the island just as I had hoped!

Just off the shore by the small town of Perast are two lovely islands. The islet of St George houses the cemetery of Perast and a Benedictine monastery from the 12th century. The smaller Our Lady of the Rocks Island is a popular pilgrimage destination in Montenegro and its beautiful chapel can also be visited, by boat, by tourists. Unfortunately, not on our Viking Cruise ship!

The lighting is perfect now with the sun casting interesting shadows on the hills. The ship was turning by this point and my position above the bow of the boat was not perfect. Other guests enjoying their morning coffee probably watched in amusement as I rushed from the front up onto the upper side decks to get different views as we sailed up the bay!

I’ve also tried my hand at some painting of this small pair of islands. Not with real brushes, I must admit, but I do think this one has a certain something!

As we continued to sail up the bay, the clouds continued to thin. The whole journey from entering the channel to arriving in Kotor took almost two hours and so you can imagine how many images I took as I raced around the boat! As we finally started to see Kotor itself in the distance, we had the sort of conditions you dream of. Wispy clouds providing interest in the sky and very calm still waters in the bay:

I was taking both single shots and also a series of images taken as I swung round to create a panorama of the scene:

And then I would race to the side of the ship to look back at where we had been:

Finally, we reached our destination – the city of Kotor and the ship started edging its way towards the dock, which was right in the center of the town:

But just time for a quick look back at the water being churned by our propellors as we maneuvered into our berth.

Somewhere in this mad dash, I must have snatched a breakfast so that we were ready to be off the ship and into the old town. There are not many places where a quick stroll across the waterfront from the ship takes you through the town walls, but Kotor was just such a place. You can tell just how tight things were along the dockside with this view of the ship:

Kotor is surrounded by a wall with the mountain providing protection at the rear, with a paved path up the mountainside to the fortress which spreads along the cliffs to finally reach a height of 260m (about 850 feet) above the water.

We had a walking tour of the town first thing (which I will cover in part two of this story) and we also had a tour of the local area booked for after lunch and between the two I had to get up that mountain! I dashed to point A on this map, realized that I need 8 euros in cash, ran back to the ship for some money and then off again. It was a bit of a race against time as I couldn’t miss the afternoon tour, but I managed to keep wiping my brow, hiking uphill, taking a photo, and finally getting to the fortress ruins at the top!

As you can see, the path had both steps and a somewhat slippy stone area and had both a church and these Stations of the Cross along the way. Almost all the way, there were views over the town and harbor and down the bay towards the ocean. The blue sky that had welcomed us to Kotor was looking much less prominent as the morning wore on:

Up and up, I went!

But I made it and had some time to explore the ruins before making the faster descent back to the ship for lunch and then ready for the afternoon adventure.

In the next article in this series about the Viking Star Cruise from Athens to Venice, I will explore the old town of Kotor as well as the Monastery and Royal Gardens in Cetinje.

And a word for my European readers. Throughout these articles I have been providing a link from the images to my online store where prints are available with a 30-day guarantee of satisfaction and free shipping in the USA and Canada. Not great if you live in Europe! My prints are also available from a second site that also offers a 30-day money back guarantee and has printing facilities in several countries in Europe. You can find those images here on Pixels.com.

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