11 - 14 September 2013
Day 1: Arriving
So I had planned to get into Kotor during the day but because of the whole "no bus" thing in Dubrovnik I ended up arriving when it was already dark. I had directions to get to the hostel so I just started walking in that general direction. The first thing I noticed was a trail of lights that I now know were lighting up parts of the castle on the hill but at the time they looked both confusing and awesome. I had the munchies on the way and found a street kebab vendor, so I grabbed one but it was weird (not so good). By the time I finished choking the kebab down I could see the sign for the hostel which was a relief because I only had rough directions to it and was worried it would be buried in the back streets. Check in was easy and I pretty much went straight to bed.
Day 2: Castle climb
I started with brekky in the common room where I met two Israeli guys who were going to climb the castle and invited me to come along. The was also a Dutchman who came and together we walked to the old town, paid our 3 euros and took the dodgy steps up the hillside castle. The views got better and better as we climbed and the pieces of ruined castle were fun to climb through too.
Waterfall
After having seen all the castle had to offer, we headed back to the hostel to meet and Aussie girl and a Kiwi girl. Together we all headed off to look at a waterfall that the girls wanted to see and it turned out to be right next to where we climbed the castle. There wasn't much water so it was basically a bunch of huge rocks that we climbed for a few minutes until we found a nice spot to relax and have a beer. The Israeli guys wanted to keep climbing to see what was at the top so they scaled a more challenging section and kept going through some ponds of water.
Birthday
Today is my 26th birthday and once everyone found out there was no choice but to have a party that night. We gathered up a bunch of people from the hostel and went to a place for dinner that roughly translates the "The Butcher". This place was FANTASTIC! It looked like a butcher with all the meat on display but you pick whatever you want and they grab it and cook it for you there and then and it's both cheap and delicious. After dinner we stocked up on super cheap 2L bottles of beer from the supermarket and headed back to the hostel. Our group had Israelis, Dutch, Aussies, Finnish and Serbians so when they sang happy birthday to me, I had it sung in all 5 languages:
Day 3: Lazy start
As you'd expect, we all had a pretty lazy start to the day today. It wasn't such a bad thing because we had some rain come through anyway. One of the Israeli guys cooked an amazing breakfast that was an omelette type thing and it was a great hangover cure.
Epic hill climb
Once the rain cleared, the two Israelis, a Finnish guy and myself set out to follow a walking trail to the top of the hill on the other side of the bay. We found the start of the trail no worries and followed it for a bit and even had a local point us in the right direction but soon we were getting the feeling that we weren't on the trail any more because we couldn't see any signs and it was getting pretty steep/tight. We decided to push onwards and started to climb straight up the hill and after what may have been 30 minutes of climbing we stopped to regroup. We were clearly not on the trail any more and it was probably too steep to go back down the way we came so the only way out was to go up and hope we found a trail back down. We ended up climbing on hands and knees at times, climbed lots of rock walls and basically blazed our own trail but because the 3 other guys had all done (mandatory) military service, I wasn't feeling too worried. After about 3.5 hrs we finally made it to the top where we found the trail and also had a well deserved, awesome view of the whole bay.
Fort
As a bonus for surviving the climb we found an abandoned fort at the top of the hill. It was a strange place because it was surrounded by dirt walls (that had goats living on them) and it featured massive (but decommissioned) gun turrets that may have been able to fire at ships both in the bay and in the sea on the other side of the hill. We found a room that was full of bats and generally explored everywhere in this fort. After the fort adventure it was starting to get dark so we decided to head back down the hill but this time we took the easy way and used the trail. We also found out that we went wrong: right after the local gave us directions and it was because we went left rather than climbing a small pile of the rocks to the right. All of this happened about 10 metres from the local so he would've watched us go the wrong way and just said nothing. Still, I'm glad it happened the way it did because I really enjoyed it (at least looking back on it).
Dinner
We looked around at a few different spots to have dinner but in the end we headed back to the butcher place because we were starving and knew this place was good. We ordered a massive feast consisting of a giant hamburger each, a huge tray of chips and a plate of veggies each. It seemed appropriate to have such an epic feast after such an epic day.
Drinks
Back at the hostel we found the Serbians drinking again (as I've found they do every night) so we joined them down on the beach. They were drinking a mix called bamboo which is the cheapest red wine you can find mixed 50/50 with coke and it sounds rubbish but it's actually quite drinkable (senses all the red wine lovers I know wince at the moment). They also told me about another mix called a Palm Tree that is white wine and Fanta but that wasn't on the menu. Looking back through my notes I have a dot point saying these were the two best days I'd had in a long time and I still feel like that even now (having been home for 5 weeks).
Day 4: Beach
A bunch of us spent the morning on the beach, which is right in front of the hostel. It's quite a good beach too because it's got the small pebbles instead of sand, the water is a nice temperature and is really clean. The guys threw a frisbee and a ballat to each other while the girls sun bathed (how stereotypical).
Another hill climb
The castle climb we did on the first day only went half way up the hill but from there you could see a zigzag track that went right to the top of the hill and I really wanted to do it before I left. No-one else wanted to come with me so I headed off on my own. It was a safe climb (after the previous one) but it still took about 90 minutes to get to the top and the insect were feeling particularly friendly. I passed the small house and herd of goats and made it to the top of the first hill, which is all you can see from sea level, but from here you can see that there's more to climb and although I really wanted to keep going, I had to head back because it was getting late.
Big dinner
Dinner tonight was a massive pot of pasta that started off small but as more people came with bits and piece, we just threw whatever they had in and it turned out that we had enough for 7 people. There were, of course, beers and I fell asleep on the couch in the common room but I only realised when I woke up at 2:30am and everyone else had gone to bed, whoops.
Day 5: Errands
I'd extended my stay here for an extra day three times now so it was time to leave and see the next city. I went to the bus station in the morning and booked a ticket for the 12hr bus ride to Skopje, that I really wasn't looking forward to, and sent some postcards to tell people how much I love this place.
Another hill climb
Yep, there are a lot of walking trails here. Apparently, the night before, one of the girls was telling the Finnish guy and I about an abandoned village on the hill side and I said that I wanted to go see it (not that I remember doing it) but I really did still want to go see it. To get to the starting point of the trail we had to catch a local bus around the bay and it was an interesting ride because the road is only wide enough for 1.5 cars but it's a two way road so there was a lot of squeezing and racing to get into gaps. There was some confusion about where the trail started but we eventually found it and didn't have any troubles from then on because the trail was well marked. The start was a brutal climb up the hill but we ended up in a forest that felt like it was from a fantasy movie and eventually reached the top. We still hadn't found the village so we just kept following the trail down the other side of the hill and sure enough, we came across it just before we reached the bottom (so we started at the wrong end of the trail). It wasn't totally abandoned because we saw one guy living there and we couldn't go exploring in the houses because they were all boarded up but it was still nice to see, had a good view over a section of the bay we hadn't seen and was an enjoyable hike. We had to catch the bus to get back but there aren't any bus stops so we just started walking and when we saw the bus coming, we hailed it down and thankfully it felt like stopping for us.
Dinner
We bought a bunch of food from the supermarket, cooked most of it and ended up with way too much. Then it was time to say goodbye to everyone and make my way to the bus station where I'd take the overnight bus through Albania to Skopje, Macedonia.
Thoughts about Kotor:
Day 1: Arriving
So I had planned to get into Kotor during the day but because of the whole "no bus" thing in Dubrovnik I ended up arriving when it was already dark. I had directions to get to the hostel so I just started walking in that general direction. The first thing I noticed was a trail of lights that I now know were lighting up parts of the castle on the hill but at the time they looked both confusing and awesome. I had the munchies on the way and found a street kebab vendor, so I grabbed one but it was weird (not so good). By the time I finished choking the kebab down I could see the sign for the hostel which was a relief because I only had rough directions to it and was worried it would be buried in the back streets. Check in was easy and I pretty much went straight to bed.
Day 2: Castle climb
I started with brekky in the common room where I met two Israeli guys who were going to climb the castle and invited me to come along. The was also a Dutchman who came and together we walked to the old town, paid our 3 euros and took the dodgy steps up the hillside castle. The views got better and better as we climbed and the pieces of ruined castle were fun to climb through too.
Waterfall
After having seen all the castle had to offer, we headed back to the hostel to meet and Aussie girl and a Kiwi girl. Together we all headed off to look at a waterfall that the girls wanted to see and it turned out to be right next to where we climbed the castle. There wasn't much water so it was basically a bunch of huge rocks that we climbed for a few minutes until we found a nice spot to relax and have a beer. The Israeli guys wanted to keep climbing to see what was at the top so they scaled a more challenging section and kept going through some ponds of water.
Birthday
Today is my 26th birthday and once everyone found out there was no choice but to have a party that night. We gathered up a bunch of people from the hostel and went to a place for dinner that roughly translates the "The Butcher". This place was FANTASTIC! It looked like a butcher with all the meat on display but you pick whatever you want and they grab it and cook it for you there and then and it's both cheap and delicious. After dinner we stocked up on super cheap 2L bottles of beer from the supermarket and headed back to the hostel. Our group had Israelis, Dutch, Aussies, Finnish and Serbians so when they sang happy birthday to me, I had it sung in all 5 languages:
Day 3: Lazy start
As you'd expect, we all had a pretty lazy start to the day today. It wasn't such a bad thing because we had some rain come through anyway. One of the Israeli guys cooked an amazing breakfast that was an omelette type thing and it was a great hangover cure.
Epic hill climb
Once the rain cleared, the two Israelis, a Finnish guy and myself set out to follow a walking trail to the top of the hill on the other side of the bay. We found the start of the trail no worries and followed it for a bit and even had a local point us in the right direction but soon we were getting the feeling that we weren't on the trail any more because we couldn't see any signs and it was getting pretty steep/tight. We decided to push onwards and started to climb straight up the hill and after what may have been 30 minutes of climbing we stopped to regroup. We were clearly not on the trail any more and it was probably too steep to go back down the way we came so the only way out was to go up and hope we found a trail back down. We ended up climbing on hands and knees at times, climbed lots of rock walls and basically blazed our own trail but because the 3 other guys had all done (mandatory) military service, I wasn't feeling too worried. After about 3.5 hrs we finally made it to the top where we found the trail and also had a well deserved, awesome view of the whole bay.
Fort
As a bonus for surviving the climb we found an abandoned fort at the top of the hill. It was a strange place because it was surrounded by dirt walls (that had goats living on them) and it featured massive (but decommissioned) gun turrets that may have been able to fire at ships both in the bay and in the sea on the other side of the hill. We found a room that was full of bats and generally explored everywhere in this fort. After the fort adventure it was starting to get dark so we decided to head back down the hill but this time we took the easy way and used the trail. We also found out that we went wrong: right after the local gave us directions and it was because we went left rather than climbing a small pile of the rocks to the right. All of this happened about 10 metres from the local so he would've watched us go the wrong way and just said nothing. Still, I'm glad it happened the way it did because I really enjoyed it (at least looking back on it).
Dinner
We looked around at a few different spots to have dinner but in the end we headed back to the butcher place because we were starving and knew this place was good. We ordered a massive feast consisting of a giant hamburger each, a huge tray of chips and a plate of veggies each. It seemed appropriate to have such an epic feast after such an epic day.
Drinks
Back at the hostel we found the Serbians drinking again (as I've found they do every night) so we joined them down on the beach. They were drinking a mix called bamboo which is the cheapest red wine you can find mixed 50/50 with coke and it sounds rubbish but it's actually quite drinkable (senses all the red wine lovers I know wince at the moment). They also told me about another mix called a Palm Tree that is white wine and Fanta but that wasn't on the menu. Looking back through my notes I have a dot point saying these were the two best days I'd had in a long time and I still feel like that even now (having been home for 5 weeks).
Day 4: Beach
A bunch of us spent the morning on the beach, which is right in front of the hostel. It's quite a good beach too because it's got the small pebbles instead of sand, the water is a nice temperature and is really clean. The guys threw a frisbee and a ball
Another hill climb
The castle climb we did on the first day only went half way up the hill but from there you could see a zigzag track that went right to the top of the hill and I really wanted to do it before I left. No-one else wanted to come with me so I headed off on my own. It was a safe climb (after the previous one) but it still took about 90 minutes to get to the top and the insect were feeling particularly friendly. I passed the small house and herd of goats and made it to the top of the first hill, which is all you can see from sea level, but from here you can see that there's more to climb and although I really wanted to keep going, I had to head back because it was getting late.
Big dinner
Dinner tonight was a massive pot of pasta that started off small but as more people came with bits and piece, we just threw whatever they had in and it turned out that we had enough for 7 people. There were, of course, beers and I fell asleep on the couch in the common room but I only realised when I woke up at 2:30am and everyone else had gone to bed, whoops.
Day 5: Errands
I'd extended my stay here for an extra day three times now so it was time to leave and see the next city. I went to the bus station in the morning and booked a ticket for the 12hr bus ride to Skopje, that I really wasn't looking forward to, and sent some postcards to tell people how much I love this place.
Another hill climb
Yep, there are a lot of walking trails here. Apparently, the night before, one of the girls was telling the Finnish guy and I about an abandoned village on the hill side and I said that I wanted to go see it (not that I remember doing it) but I really did still want to go see it. To get to the starting point of the trail we had to catch a local bus around the bay and it was an interesting ride because the road is only wide enough for 1.5 cars but it's a two way road so there was a lot of squeezing and racing to get into gaps. There was some confusion about where the trail started but we eventually found it and didn't have any troubles from then on because the trail was well marked. The start was a brutal climb up the hill but we ended up in a forest that felt like it was from a fantasy movie and eventually reached the top. We still hadn't found the village so we just kept following the trail down the other side of the hill and sure enough, we came across it just before we reached the bottom (so we started at the wrong end of the trail). It wasn't totally abandoned because we saw one guy living there and we couldn't go exploring in the houses because they were all boarded up but it was still nice to see, had a good view over a section of the bay we hadn't seen and was an enjoyable hike. We had to catch the bus to get back but there aren't any bus stops so we just started walking and when we saw the bus coming, we hailed it down and thankfully it felt like stopping for us.
Dinner
We bought a bunch of food from the supermarket, cooked most of it and ended up with way too much. Then it was time to say goodbye to everyone and make my way to the bus station where I'd take the overnight bus through Albania to Skopje, Macedonia.
Thoughts about Kotor:
- This is usually my answer to the "where is your favourite place?" question
- There wasn't just one thing that made it awesome but it was more a case of everything was fairly good
- There are lots of walking trails
- The hostel was good
- I had my 26th birthday here so maybe I'm a bit biased
- I met lots of great people
- The scenery looks fantastic
- It's cheap and the food and beer is great
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| Looking out over the bay from near the top of the castle |
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| Looking up at the castle from part way up |
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| My mates taking a photo on the castle |
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| Group photo at the top of the castle with the Dutchman and two Israeli guys |
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| Part way up the "walking trail". At this point I was pretty sure we weren't on the trail any more. |
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| Success! Looking out over Kotor and the bay after making it to the top of the hill (L->R Finland, Israel, Israel) |
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| An abandoned fort at the top of the hill |
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| Bats lived in the fort |
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| Parts of the fort weren't there anymore |
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| Climbing our way through the "waterfall" (there wasn't much water there) |
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| A huge steel turret in the fort |
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| Trying to move the seized machinery in the fort (we failed) |
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| One of the smaller, rotatable gun turrets at the top of the fort |
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| Climbing out onto the roof of the fort |
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| A sleeping bat |
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| It looks like ground but it's actually the top of the fort |
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| The start of the epic feast after a huge day of walking |
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| Looking back down at the Israelis when we were climbing the side of the mountain |
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| I made it to the top of the other hill and managed to get this photo before the camera went flat |
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| An interesting picture on the sign of The Butcher |
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| The local beer (it was nice too) |
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| Looking up at the castle from sea level |
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| My Finnish friend doing the epic hill climb in thongs |
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| Panorama looking out over the bay from near the fort |
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| Relaxing after the epic hill climb |
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| The fort |
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| Looking up at the zigzag trail (can't really make it out though) |
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| Panorama from the top of the zigzag trail |
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| The top part of the zigzag trail |
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| The lower part of the zigzag trail |
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| The fantasy/fairy forest from the day 5 climb |
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| Nearing the top of the day 5 climb's hill |
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| View out over the bay from the top of the day 5's hill (dunno what the go with the fake tree island and church in the middle of the bay is) |
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| Panorama from the "abandoned" village |
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| Proof I was at the abandoned village |
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| The abandoned village |
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| Looking up at the abandoned village from sea level |
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| A cool looking boat in the marina |
