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! 

Three more countries: Kosovo, Albania, and Montenegro

Phillip and I have been in three more countries since my last post five days ago. From North Macedonia and our pirate ship hotel, we traveled to Kosovo, spent one night in Albania (we will return there next week), and moved on to Montenegro. 

Kosovo countryside from the bus

We deviated from the tentative itinerary that we left with our family because of transportation concerns. We planned two stops in Kosovo, but only visited one Kosovan city, Prizren, a city not even on our initial list. Prizren did, however, have decent bus connections with Skopje and towns in Albania. 

river thru Prizren, Albania

We spent two nights in Kosovo which meant just one full day for walking around the city. That full day would have been Friday, June 6. However, that was a national religious holiday for the country. We weren't traveling that day, but we did go to the bus station to get our onward ticket a day early. No buses, no staff, no one at all around except a man from Istanbul and a man from London, both planning to take a bus out of town that day. I used Google translate on a notice taped to the bus station's ticket window to learn about the holiday. 

no traffic on the national holiday

Prizren had a really nice stone bridge over the river.

And a fortress on the hill next to town. Phillip and I did not trek to this fortress as there was no cable car, it's just ruins and piles of rocks, and guidebooks note the extreme steepness of the path to the top. And, most importantly, the temperature was above 90 degrees. 

top of the hill fortress

It wasn't too hot to walk on the level streets, although only restaurants near the stone bridge were open. All around town, we saw "hero" monuments. They were statues of local men killed in 1998 during the fighting between Kosovo and Serbia. Several of them had the word "hero" with the name and dates of the deceased soldier.

near the stone bridge

On Saturday, we left Kosovo and entered Albania.

Albanian countryside as seen from the bus

We stayed in Shkodar, Albania, for a night because no buses were scheduled from Shkodar to Montenegro after our bus from Kosovo. We didn't walk around Shkoder when we arrived because we plan to return to Shkodar. Also, our bus from Kosovo dropped us off over two miles from downtown and we walked with our suitcases to our hotel in the heat of the day. We weren't upset that the bus drop-off was at the edge of town, we just considered it part of the adventure! I do plan to order new wheels for our suitcases because they are taking quite a beating on this trip. 

The bus yesterday from Shkodar to our current stop, Podgorica, Montenegro, did load in town, just around the corner from our hotel. Another border crossing and into our 10th country of the trip. We've had no issues at the border crossings. The bus unloads at the crossing when leaving a country and the passengers file up to the window and present their passports. Back on the bus, and travel a few hundred feet to the next country's border stop. We unload and file up to that country's officials to get our passports stamped to enter the new country. Back on the bus and we proceed onward. No pictures because a border crossing is considered a secure area and photography is not allowed.  

Podgorica is the capital of Montenegro. We could have continued on to the coast but decided to stay a few days before going to the tourist area that is Kotor. Not much to really see here, but we did walk around and found another stone bridge.

Podgorica's stone bridge, not in a developed area like Prizren's was

The best views were from our hotel restaurant terrace. We ate dinner here with these views of the surrounding mountains. 

view from hotel terrace

Tomorrow, we travel to Kotor, still in "little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!" (a quote from chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby, when Gatsby showed Nick his medal from there). Kotor will put us back on the coast, about 200 miles south of Split, Croatia, our last coastal town before we turned inland a few weeks ago. 

Sleeping in a pirate ship in Skopje, North Macedonia

our hotel in Skopje

Yes, we are spending our nights in Skopje on a pirate ship on the Vardar River! This is the Senigallia Hotel, an 18-room hotel and restaurant built, not sailed, on the river in the middle of Skopje. Our room is the size of a cruise cabin, but with much better finishing - heavy wood paneling instead of covered metal walls.

the two windows have wooden shutters on the outside

The room is comfortable, but the air conditioning system isn't the best so in the afternoon, the room is warm. The high temperature today and yesterday was 94 degrees. As the sun goes down, the A/C system can keep it cool. 

Skopje, although the capital of the country, is small enough that we walk to see places of interest on both sides of the Vardar River. As we walked, we noticed dogs, mature, well-fed, but with no owner in sight, all ear-tagged. 

hot day, dogs resting on the cool tile in the shade

The sight we came to Skopje for is just a few blocks from our hotel, the Memorial House of Mother Teresa.

exterior of Memorial House

 

inside the memorial house

Mother Teresa as a child with her sister in Skopje

Skopje is known for its many, many statues. However, they aren't ancient statues but were installed during a government project starting in 2013. 

Phillip has the bull by the horns

The gold statue started out as a nude, but protests caused
the artist to return and put shorts on him as he is facing
the Parliament building right across the street

our hotel "rigging" can be seen on the right side of the photo

the largest statue in town

The above "Warrior on a Horse" is in the central square of the newer side of the river. It was constructed to represent Alexander the Great, but the Greeks made an official protest about Macedonia co-opting Greek things, so the name was changed to Warrior on a Horse.  

even the new bridges have statues

One bridge in Skopje, the Stone Bridge, is authentically 15th century construction. No statues on it, but they did crowd the ends with statues. 

the Stone Bridge

Today, we took a walking tour. Our guide gave context to and stories of several of the places we had already visited. The very best part of the tour was our canine escorts. 

Our two escorts, Linda (the darker dog) and her
friend whose name I didn't catch

Our tour guide said the tagged dogs we see belong to no individual. The City did microchip, ear tag and neuter or spay them. They are fed by the tourists and restaurants and are all well-behaved. We certainly found this the case with the two who tagged along the entire tour. When we went inside an old church, the two dogs laid down outside and waited for us as they knew they were not allowed inside. Our group of eight would stop and the dogs would stand or sit next us and of course get head scratches or shoulder rubs. 

The church that the dogs did not go in was halfway up the hill to the city's fortress. The guide said the fortress was just ruins and only served as a viewpoint to see the city. The tour didn't go on to the fortress and Phillip and I did not go visit it after the tour as it was hot and we've been to several better fortresses on this trip.

the city fortress ruins on the hill in the distance

The tour did take us into the bazaar, with its cobblestone streets and vendors. This had been one of the stops on the Silk Road. We did come back here after the tour and have lunch.

Our final stop of the tour was the actual site of Mother Teresa's house in Skopje. The guide had no clue why the Memorial was constructed three blocks away with a memorial marker on the real house location.

stone marker on the actual Mother Teresa house location

Tomorrow, we leave North Macedonia and go to Kosovo. We will change buses enroute and only spend a few days in Kosovo before making our way to Montenegro.