Kotor to Petrovac

Day 22.

Kotor to Petrovac, Montenegro

Before we turned in for the night, we walked Meg along the beach and were pleased to see Kotor and it’s old walls lit up. Just like Ston, they have wall defences going up the hill. And, yes you can walk them if you so wish .

Late night beach walk

Beautiful lights around Kotor

We had more rain overnight and were rudely awakened at 04.29 by the bells. I think it was every church in Kotor as it was so loud. They rang out to celebrate Orthodox Easter Sunday and rang again and again at different times, not just on the hour , so as you can guess we had another early start.

When Gareth took Meg out for her morning ablutions he came straight back to tell me that we had a visitor. One of the cruise ships we saw in Split was docked opposite the campsite. I think the reason we didn’t hear it’s engines was because of, yes, the bells!

I also received a crisis alert this morning, my blessed driver was down to his penultimate pair of underpants , I immediately sent out a distress signal, but stood it down after realising our planned stop for tonight has a laundry phew.

Anyway, suitably attired, we wandered into the centre. It’s another walled town and was starting to get busy with the cruise passengers and coach parties already at 09.30am. There are 3 old gate entrances. The rear of the town was defended by the amazing wall defences rising above it.

The oldest building is St Tryphon’s Cathedral, built in the 12th century. A lot of the other buildings used to be family owned palaces. The old town is pedestrianised and has a large amount of cats, to the point it is now famous for them and there are cats on most of the merchandise for Kotor. Meg tried to play with some of them but they were having none of it!

We came across lots of cute little squares with bars, restaurants and shops, just getting ready for the day. There are cute Christmas decoration shops with hand carved models. I really liked them as they were different to anything I’d seen before but when checking the price I decided they weren’t that cute! €206!!

We also found the smallest bar. They had a fab facade, but when looking inside, there was enough room just for the people sitting on the bar stools , everyone else had to sit outside .

To celebrate Easter the locals boil eggs and dye them on good Friday and share them with family and friends on Easter Sunday. Sitting for a drink at the end of our walk we were given one each by the waitress as an Easter gift . Charming.

Boiled eggs!

Decorated eggs for Easter

We left Kotor and headed along the coast towards Albania. We need a green card to drive there so couldn’t go today in case the border office was shut. So instead picked a little gem of a campsite in Petrovac. It has all the amenities we need – including the laundry – for €25, bargain. There’s also a beach at the bottom of the campsite where Meg had a play with some strays, who were lovely and well, so maybe not strays, just not wearing collars . Also, there’s a derelict building with a really funky mural .