Clinging to the bay

The landscape around here is absolutely stunning; mountains falling into crystal clear sea.

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We awake quite early, as you usually do when camping. The dawn brings all that sunlight, luckily we pitched under the shade of the tree. It is not yet hot enough for the Cicadas to start their Zzzzzz…zzzz…zzzzing. We have just an iced coffee for breakfast, then we pack up our camping stuff. Leaving our rucksacks at reception we head to the lake. By 9.00am and a few people are beginning to arrive, it is the weekend, it looks like it will be busy. Most seem to be bringing enough stuff to stay the whole day, not us though, a quick dip in the warm waters before catching the bus to the next destination. It arrives early, not what we expected, not a bus at all, a coach, but whatever, we get on anyway.

The coach follows the bay, never straying more than a few metres from its banks. The sea is so tranquil, only disturbed by the hoards that are now swimming at every available spot.

Mountains rise up dramatically from the water edge. The only place to develop on the shores, and even then only limited. The houses cascade down on each other. Occasionally, a road heroically climbs the hill side heading into the deep interior.

The bay consists of numerous fingers, almost like a fjord, but what I imagine as wider. Occasionally ferries cut off the corners, not our coach though, that would be cheating, we want to cover every edge of this waterfront.

Perhaps fishing is still a viable industry in these parts.

Gradually, our first destination comes into view, Kotor.

Our coach passes through, before finding the bus station a couple of minutes past the old town. This is what attracts tourists to this place, this quaint walled old town.

It is so popular the cruise ships pull in for a quick visit. It looks like one of them has followed us from Dubrovnik, but when we check she has a different name, just the same company.

We stop by the harbour for another iced coffee and a pastry for me and then straight through imposing walls to find out what all the fuss is about this town.

It is indeed, eye wateringly quaint, almost nauseatingly so.

And as you would expect from us we find some steps and proceed upwards. Apparently somewhere up there, along the town walls, is a castle. I thought I glanced something teetering high on the hillside way up above us, surely it can’t be that. This will be our town wall experience having turned down, what we thought was the exorbitantly priced Dubrovnik walls, these are €4.

Two cruise liners are shored up, but there is only room for one alongside the jetty. A small boat ferries back and forth between the other, still languishing in the middle of the bay. It still looks quite full, but many have decided not to bother, their loss.

I suppose that is one of the problems with cruises; ‘Now remember you have to be back on board by 2pm.’ I can imagine us sending a quick text at 1.50, ‘Go without us, we have decided to climb this hill, we will catch up with you in Albania in two days time.’

We have yet to explore the town, it does look cute, hemmed in by its walls and the bay side.

It is seriously hot climbing up these steps. It is strange, because it is an urban environment the heat seems much more oppressive. We are often in the mountains with the sun blazing down on us, but it never seems so hot, but here we are drenched in sweat. Yes I know the altitude has a cooling effect, but I think it is also psychosomatic, but maybe all those hard surfaces of the town store the heat, radiating it out, making you feel hotter.

The other strange thing, Kotor is on the seaside. You would expect the sea breeze would have cooling effects on it, nope. So we walk slow, keep drinking water, hoping not to pass out. SM

Everyone seems to be suffering, we are not alone. This is a really steep climb, but surely we must be nearly at the top, the ships are starting to look like toy boats

Eventually we arrive at the castle. A surprising amount of people have made the effort and are also milling around.

This is one of those castles with no explanation and in a pretty sorry state of repair. We quite like it, you can wander anywhere, to your hearts content, and quite frankly, I am not that interested in the history.

But these can also be a bit dangerous. I don’t think they have a ‘health and safety’ executive in Montenegro, you just have to use some common sense. Quite often it seems that common sense is a bit lacking with tourists, as they walk precariously along deteriorating walls with no balustrade.

Looking out to the other side, away from the sea, we see a small chapel, some derelict buildings and an intriguing path. That would make a nice alternative back down the hillside, preventing us from retracing our steps.

We see someone down there and they look like a tourist, so it must be possible to get to.

One seems to be on the move, sailing further up the coast. The bay doesn’t look big enough to cope with such enormous vessels.

I hope there are no frantic couples watching their hotel sail off into the distance!

It really was a dramatic walk up, what an amazing wall up the ridge. A small opening in the wall hidden from view and a small drop which we can scramble down. There aren’t going to be many tourists around this bit of the walk.

The chapel is partially abandoned, but maybe it has found another use, a toilet. We move on.

Further down we come across a herd of goats.

We love goats.

They seem such intelligent animals, very quizzical.

They have found a nice spot of shade, they also seem to be suffering a bit with the heat.

They are not going to move from their preferred spot, we have to walk around them. These ones are unusually tame.

And very clever. It has an itchy back and it uses its left horn to scratch it. Shame we didn’t take that shot. SM

We leave them to it. Our path twists and turns down a series of switchbacks back to town. The path is shallow and easy going, but all those bends, it takes ages. The other path would have been much quicker.

We look back up the hillside.

We are quite impressed with our little impromptu walk. Not what we were expecting at all.

Back in town a shopping centre lures us in with its air conditioning and a supermarket. We grab a few bits for lunch and head….

for the beach, this is such a hard life….but then someone has to do it.

A quick swim and lunch. We are surprised to find a group of ten Scottish lads also soaking up the sun. Is this becoming a recognised tourist spot?

Our bus leaves soon, but just enough time to head back through the town. See a bit more of that nauseating quaintness.

We keep glancing up at where we climbed to earlier.

Very satisfying!

Cute.

This caught my attention, stupid I now; an oversize bench on which everyone was taking a photo. I did like everyone and I took one, although I didn’t sit on it,  I didn’t go that far. SM

The town has been transformed into bars restaurants and tat shops. There is nothing for us here.

Except for a bit of a breeze as we walk on by. Really like these fans that also spray a mist of water, very cooling.

A new coach. We head away from the bay and across the peninsula, heading for Budva.

GDR