Kotor, Montenegro

 

This is a tender port, and we anchored about 1pm. The sun has come out fully and it feels quite hot. People with tours had first dibbs on the tenders, so we waited till after 2pm to head to town.

 Surprisingly there were quite a few new crew members coming off the tender we were waiting for. About a 15 minute tender ride into the dock near the old town. There is only room for 1 cruise ship at the dock - an MSC ship (one of their smallest at about 2600 passengers!). 

The Old Town of Kotor is a walled city at the base of very steep cliffs. There are several fortresses guarding the city from high above. If you choose you can hike up, a zig-zag route that takes about 1 hour one-way and costs 15 Euro. (I did not choose to do this) Instead we headed through the main gate into the Old Town. The dock and the main square were very busy, but we climbed the stairs onto the ramparts and the crowds soon thinned out. This is an incredibly beautiful setting for a town. It's quite touristy of course, but if you get off the main streets you can still feel a little of the old character.

 One of the lovely features of the town for me was all of the cats! They were all over and seemed to be well fed and taken care of. They seem quite oblivious of the passing tourists, though some will come over for pats. We circuited the town and explored all of the ramparts before heading back to ship.