Two fortress cities: Kotor and Budva, Montenegro

We visited the Adriatic coast again, this time in Montenegro's coastal areas. We traveled from Podgorica, in the interior of Montenegro, to Kotor. We spent four nights in Kotor before going by bus about an hour south to the town of Budva. Both Kotor and Budva have seaside fortresses. Kotor, however, also had a cruise ship pier and that meant crowds of people. In Kotor, we were fortunate to get a room in a hotel within the Kotor fortress walls!

our hotel had formerly been the old town hall

Even with the crowds of people, we enjoyed walking around and in the fortress. 

We could walk along the top of a portion of the fortress wall

narrow, cobblestone alleys inside the fortress

In addition to exploring the fortress, a major activity in Kotor is to take a speedboat ride to see the attractions in Kotor Bay. Although I'm not a fan of speedboats, we did take the 3-hour tour. I sang the Gilligan's Island theme song to Phillip before we departed, but our boat had eight passengers, not five, who "set sail that day for a three-hour tour." 

Our first stop was a submarine tunnel, an actual man-made cave from the 1950s, used by Yugoslav submarines to avoid detection from the West.  Three tunnels, interconnected when they were in use, dotted the rock shoreline.

wire held rocks over the entrance to disguise it from the air

Our boat was small enough to go into the tunnel and turn around.

inside the submarine tunnel, looking out

We went past, but did not stop at, a former prison island, Mamula Island. A fortress was built on it in 1853 and during WWI and WWII, the fortress was used as a prison. In 2016, an Arab sheik bought it from Kotor and turned it into a luxury resort. 

former prison fortress, now luxury resort

Our next stop on our boat tour was at Blue Eye, a cave where the water seems extraordinarily blue.

After stopping inside the cave for pictures, the boat anchored just outside the cave for passengers to swim if they wanted to. I chose not to as it meant jumping off the perfectly good boat and climbing back up the side of the boat. Phillip did go for his swim in the Adriatic Sea.

Phillips swimming beside the boat at the Blue Eye cave

Our boat headed back toward Kotor as we were just outside the Bay when we stopped at Blue Eye. 

Our last stop was at Our Lady of the Rocks, a man-made island in the bay with a church. We got off the boat for pictures here, but Phillip and I didn't pay to go into the scenic church. 

On our next day in Kotor, we escaped the crowds of tourists by heading up the goat trail behind the Kotor Fortress. 

beginning of the trail up the hill

We could have paid 15 euros each to use the steps to go directly up the hill to viewpoint, but many travel blogs and guidebooks relate that the goat trail is free; well-maintained; and an easier, more gradual climb.

view from about 1/4 of the way up the trail

We made it about halfway to the top of the mountain before I wanted to stop, not because it was too steep or hard to climb, but because the trail had no defined edge. Not being a fan of heights, I was quite anxious when walking right next to the drop-off. We were on the switchbacks shown in the next picture when we headed back down. The trail wound to the back side of the mountain, so the view of the sea diminished the higher we walked, and that sea view had been the reason for going up the trail.  

We left Kotor for Budva, only an hour away but with a lot fewer tourists blocking the sidewalks and fortress alleys. The trip took the full hour even though the distance was only 15 miles. Workers were widening the road so we had construction delays for almost the entire journey. We had a nice hotel for our stay in Budva but the wifi would not support uploading pictures, so this post is being competed in Albania. 

While in Budva, we visited its fortress, directly on the sea.

Budva had a boardwalk that went north and south from the fortress. On the day we visited the fortress, we walked south until the boardwalk ended. 

At the end of the boardwalk, people (not us!) were jumping off the rocks into the sea. 

looks like he'll hit the rocks, but he didn't

On our final day in Budva, we walked north on the boardwalk and stopped for a few hours at a beach. For ten euros, we rented two chairs and a beach umbrella for the entire day. We only stayed a few hours. The weather was perfect and the beach umbrella was big enough to keep the sun off of us. The water was cold, but I did go out and swim in the Adriatic Sea! 

We left Budva and returned to Shkoder, Albania. This visit, we stay for three nights and see the city and the area. I was more careful selecting our bus to get here, ensuring that it dropped passengers in the city center, not two miles away like the bus from Kosovo to Shkoder did. We were dropped of a block from our hotel this time, much better!