Monday, July 06, 2015

Kotor : Surprise of Montenegro


While on vacation, we took a trip out to Kotor in Montenegro.
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For those of you that don't know, Montenegro is one of the smallest of the ex-Yugoslavia republics.  We stayed in Dubrovnik (the small red * on the extreme south of the Croatian coast) and drove around the Bay of Kotor to the walled city of Kotor (the small blue dot).
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Both John and I had read that the Bay is breath-taking, and it is.  But the little walled city also amazed me.  Being more remote, smaller and harder to get to that Dubrovnik, the city was less flooded with tourists (luckily we had also just arrived after a smaller cruise ship sailed out).  In any case, this was a great town.  I will add a lot of pictures with captions, click to get more information.
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Note that in many of the pictures in the background is a hill with small rows of walls.  The walls are actually quite big, and run up to a pre-Roman fortress.  John and Sue climbed the walls way up to the fortress.  I would have, of course, but was busy being a tourist in old town.
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Lorenzo Pompeii and I on the walls (what a great name).
John and Sue - PreHike (the walked to the top of the mountain above!)
There is a tiny church from the 9th century shown below.  It was originally a Roman Catholic church, then, for 1,000 years, it was a shared Othodox / Catholic church.  In the 1800s it was turned over to the Orthodox church exclusively.
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But inside you can see the Catholic frescos from the 9th century in an nave.
 

The church above and the Orthodox front.  Immediately above is the uncovered frescos.
Other pictures of the city, the main Catholic church and us...
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The Walls at the river, and then creeping up the hill.





The New Church (808).

Gareth, Jane, Barbara, Lorenzo and Ed in the new church.