Kotor, Montenegro to Dubrovnik, Croatia

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We met our local tour guide, Vesna, at 9 am and proceeded on our walking tour of the old town of Kotor. This place is just beautiful and everything I glimpses the "wall of Kotor", I am in awe. The wall is 4 and a half kilometres long and took about 1,000 years to complete. To walk to the top there are 1,400 steps and it is unbelievable how hight up it goes, all the way to the fortress on top. We started the tour at the 'sea gate' in the city wall where Vesna explained that the water used to come right up to this gate, in ancient times. We then walked through the town, stopping along the way for Vesna to tell us something about particular buildings. On tower, just inside the sea gate and right on the main square, used to be the torture tower! There are many churches and important buildings - some that survived the big earthquake in 1660 but also many that were destroyed and then subsequently rebuilt. I did chuckle to myself a little when I realised I had seen most of these places the previous evening when I had no idea where I was haha.

When our tour finished we were free to explore for the next hour and a half so I set off to see if I could get close to the steps leading up to the wall. I saw a few others from our group up the same part of the wall as I was bit we couldn't figure how to get to the part that headed up as it was fenced off where we were. I then walked for a while with Kim & Don and then we went our separate ways. I enjoyed just finding different paths to follow and even walked along the waterfront for a while. I then met up with everyone back at our hotel at 11:30, as we needed to get our hand luggage and walk to the bus. Vesna joined us again as we were heading to the town of Perast and then would go out on a boat to the artificial island of Our Lady of the Rocks. According to legend, the islet was made over the centuries by local seamen who kept an ancient oath after finding the icon of Madonna and Child on the rock in the sea on July 22, 1452. Upon returning from each successful voyage, they laid a rock in the Bay. Over time, the islet gradually emerged from the sea. The custom of throwing rocks into the sea is alive even nowadays. Every year on the sunset of July 22, an event called fašinada in the local dialect, when local residents take their boats and throw rocks into the sea, widening the surface of the island, takes place.

On arrival in Perast we walked to the marina and went straight onto a boat that would take us on the short journey to the island. This island is also right next to another island that is real - the island dedicated to St George. Once on the little island Vesna took us into the church to see the amazing artwork and hear all about the different stories that relate to this amazing place. For instance, in the museum attached to the church, there is an artwork that was created by a lady who was waiting for her husband to return from the seas. She weaved such intricate pictures into this piece of work and apparently it took her 25 years to complete - not sure if the husband ever returned! The angels in the picture were weaved with her own hair and the ones at the bottom are brown but you can see the ones toward the top are grey! There are even some remnants of human remains that have been dated back to 3,500 AD that were discovered in a cave near Perast. A fascinating island. After exploring, which doesn't take long as it isn't big, we jumped into the next boat that took us back to the town of Perast. We had seen the mussel farms in the Bay of Kotor so a group of us were hoping to get some of these for lunch. We had an hour to have a lunch so Kim, Don, Robyn, John and I zoomed off to find the best place. We found one place but it seemed to be almost all booked out so we continued on down the road. We found another place and asked if they did mussels and when he said yes, we quickly grabbed a table. This place was far more authentic than the previous one so we were feeling pretty happy with that. We ordered a bottle of wine and 5 serves of the mussels and we were not disappointed! They were the best mussels I have had on this trip and the broth they were cooked in was delicious. We all loved our lunch! We had to quickly pay the bill and walk very quick to our meeting point as we knew we were going to be a few minutes late. All good though as we weren't last!

We then settled in for the long drive back to Croatia and enjoyed the view along the way. Maybe it was because we had already driven a little distance from Kotor to visit the island of Our Lady of the Rock bit this time the journey didn't seem to take so long. Also we were much quicker through both border patrols, so that also made a difference. Still, we didn't arrive at our destination in Dubrovnik until close to 5pm but that is also because we stopped to take some photos when we got close to the scenic view of the old town. We checked into our hotel, Hotel Zagreb, and settled into our rooms. I wrote my blog for a while then headed out around 6:30 to see who else was around. We aren't staying in the old town but this is a lovely part of Dubrovnik - it is only about a 5 to 10 minute walk to the beach but the walk is lined by restaurants, cafes and bars and has a real cosmopolitan feel about it. I bumped into Kim & Don and they were heading to a pizza place for dinner so I joined them. They had also see Melinda and she would also join us. We had a lovely bottle of rosé and Melinda and I shared a pizza, as did Kim and Don. It was a lovely, easy going meal and we all shared different travel stories. After dinner they headed back to the hotel and I walked down to the beach area and soaked up the atmosphere. A nice way to finish the day.

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