If there's one extremely valuable takeaway from this trip, it's that you can never trust a weather forecast in this region. We expected four days of pretty dismal conditions, and have instead been blessed in Kotor by near-perfect skies, save for a quick shower or two.
Yesterday, with talk of our post-trip diet heating up, we decided to burn off some of the shame with a hike up the city walls. The full loop is 4.5km but is a vertical ascent of 1,335 steps. Marisa thought it would be a good idea to go a fast as we could, which would have been a phenomenal suggestion had we not binged on sweet breakfast crepes made by our hostess just an hour before.
The peak of the city walls was Kotor's version of Srd. The view was almost postcard worthy, but was partially tainted by the massive cruise ship parked in the bay. This has been an ongoing theme during our stay, with as many as three(!) cruise ships docked at any given time. Predictably, this floods Old Town with the same crop of cruise ship tourists as Dubrovnik, making daytime in the heart of the city pretty unbearable. Fortunately for us, our apartment is on the other side of the bay, so we have a nice refuge from, what we have begun dubbing, "the bullshit."
That ship photobombed every picture from every angle.
After the hike, we stopped at the closest grocery store and grabbed food to make a few meals. It felt good finally abandoning meat and going with a plant-based alter-- just kidding, we made beef stir fry because that was our only option. The lone thunderstorm of our trip hit in the afternoon, and we used it as an excuse to read, recharge and hang out.
This morning, we finalized our last-minute plans to take a four-hour, semi-private (not that rich) sail around the Bay of Kotor. The morning was sunny and warm, so we took a dip off the dock directly in front of our home. We began the walk over to the Old Town docks right as our neighbor, Goran, was going into the apartment with a handyman to fix our broken hot water heater, which was dripping all over the bathroom floor and may have led to low toilet water pressure. I don't want to get into details, but the last thing you want on an Eastern European diet is low water pressure in the toilet.
In Old Town, we grabbed a few beers before meeting our Russian skipper Yuri and hopping on his ship, the Virtus. We were joined by a British couple, Jane and George, who were the perfect company. They shared their two bottles of sparkling wine, gave us fun conversation, and split time between mingling with the full group and keeping to themselves. Let me know where I can find people like that in the US.
I am still the captain now.
Yuri's English was good enough to explain things at a high level, but we didn't necessarily have a full narration of the tour of the bay. Still, it was a really therapeutic, sun-filled excursion that we needed. It's truly a bummer that the water is so highly trafficked by cruise ships, because it is really one of a kind.
After getting off the boat, we had dinner at a local barbecue. The food wasn't great, but we got a full chicken, grilled veggies, two beers and a water for 14 Euro. We then made the 20 minute walk home, and I went for a sunset swim before heading inside and taking a warm (thank you, Goran) shower.
Getting in a sunset float off of the dock.