November 2008: As part of a larger two week long trip through the Balkans and Eastern Europe, my friend Dan and I visited the country of Montenegro, one of the world’s newest countries and formerly part of the communist country of Yugoslavia before it collapsed in the early 90s. Dan and I traveled overland via bus public transport from northern Albania to the 2,000 year old town Kotor, Montenegro and we spent 2 days/1 night in Kotor before continuing our journey onwards to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Location of Kotor, Montenegro
We arrived in the dark and walked into the old city gates with our backpacks from the bus station and just found a guesthouse in the old city gates with vacancy, It was low season and tourism had not picked up yet like it did in the following years especially with cruise ships, so most places were empty in the old city. We dropped our bags off and went and has a large dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving, which was a holiday occurring in the USA on the day we were in Montenegro at one of the nicer restaurants popular with Montenegrins.
Dan when we arrived at kotor
Old city church in kotor
We had a day in Kotor, so we decided to use it well and hike all around the mountains and along the fortified walls that climb up into the mountains around the city. We followed steep stone steps up into the mountains passed old stone houses where farmers raised goats beneath towering limestone mountains. We came across stone churches and grazing billy goats, but the best part was the sweeping views of the fjords or ocean inlets from the Adriatic Sea that budded up against dramatic cliffs.
Old city of Kotor
Dan in the Old city of Kotor
One of the fortified walls along the emerald waters of the ocean inlet of Kotor
Overlooking the Old City on the climb up into the mountains
View of Kotor Fjords
Hike into the Mountains
Me standing in one of the old stone archways
Stone walkway into the mountains along the fortified walls of the old city
Old crumbling stone church in the mountains
Iam happy I had a chance to see Kotor before the onslaught of mass tourism that would eventually invade it. It was a nice beautiful little town and a great place to spend a day and night. From Kotor we continued via another public transport bus to Dubrovnik, Croatia.