I have wanted to go to Kotor, Montenegro befor,e leaving Kosovo. Many other volunteers have been and they have said that it is interesting and beautiful. We took the bus to Tirana and spent the night in a hotel across from the airport and close to car rental place. The bus dropped us in front of the hotel. The hotel was really nice and I enjoyed a long shower after a busy day. We were able to leave our luggage at the hotel while we were on our four day holiday, as we were going to spend the night there again before catching our flight home.
The drive to the border of Montenegro was uneventful, but the drive in Montenegro was crazy, as there was a lot of road construction. We ended up driving on narrow, gravel roads and Thom did not enjoy the drive. We stopped on the way in Budva for lunch. Budva is on the Adriatic Sea and has an interesting old town. We enjoyed the Mediterranean climate and had lunch outside, where we could see the Adriatic. We walked a bit and then got back in the car to drive to Kotor.
Once we got to Kotor, we found a parking lot. We left our bags there and headed to Old Town to see if we could find our rental apartment. It took a while, but we found the rental office, and the young lady there showed us our place. Then we had to go back to the car and find a permanent parking spot. She had given some suggestions for free parking. Before going to the car, we stopped at the market for 10 euros' worth of food, which allowed us to park for free while we found our place. We eventually found a place to park and walked back to the old town, where we found a side entrance that was closer to our place. After that, we walked a bit and then went to dinner. Thom found a nice little riverfront restaurant with vegetarian and vegan options (Resto Bar Taraca). We really like the food and the atmosphere. We were able to sit outside near the river.
After that, we did a little walk back to our place to get organized. The next day, we took a walking tour of the old town and found out a lot of the history. Kotor is on a fjord-like channel of the Adriatic Sea. As our guide said, it was like having the fjords of Norway with a Mediterranean climate. Because of its great seaport, the city was strategic and needed protection. The old town was a walled city, and the fortress went up the side of a pretty steep peak. On top was a fortress. One of the interesting pieces of history is that Kotor was under Venetian rule from 1420 to 1797, serving as a key naval base in the Venetian Albania province of the Venetian Republic. According to our guide, the people of Kotor invited the Venetians because they needed money to maintain and defend their city. This nearly 400-year period shaped the town’s architecture and the way in which people speak. Our guide spoke Montenegrin with an Italian accent. Montenegrin is a Slavic language. Old Town, including impressive fortifications, is a UNESCO-listed Old Town, characterized by palaces and narrow streets.
After the tour, we had lunch at Ombra in Old Town. I had pizza with vegan cheese. Then we started walking north out of Kotor to the north along the channel. We walked for a bit and then turned back. The weather was great, and the views were pretty. We had a nice day in Kotor. We had dinner in Old Town, not far from our rental.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, we took the stairway up to the fortress. The stairway was right outside our rental door. It was a nice hike up. During high season, they charge you to go up to the fortress, but it was not high season, so there was no charge. It is 1,350 steps up to the fortress, but they are well laid out, and it did not seem at all hard. We had heard that the hike called the Ladder of Kotor was also a nice hike with beautiful views. We were hoping to avoid going all the way back down to Old Town by using a back entrance to the fortress that other volunteers had told us about; it appears they have blocked up that back entrance, and we had to walk all the way down before starting back up the ladder trails. There are 72 switchbacks on the trail, and we carried a lunch with us to eat.
The switchbacks make the walk up the mountainside easy as they are very gradual. We had wonderful views of the channel and the fortress. Eventually, we were looking down on the fortress, and after a while, we could see over the peak on the other side of the sound to the Adriatic Sea. We met a group of mostly guys from the UK (there was one girl in the group) who had come to Kotor for a bachelor's weekend. They were looking for the back entrance to the fortress, but instead they found a cheese shop and a guy who served them rakia (the local alcoholic drink). Even though they did not end up seeing the fortress or hiking very far, they considered it a successful day. After hiking, we headed back to our rental for showers and then we had dinner at Resto Bar Taraca. When we arrived, we saw the group from the UK already seated at the restaurant.
After dinner, we headed back to our rental to get organized and repacked for the next morning. On our final full day in the Balkans, we headed back toward Tirana in the morning. We stopped for coffee and a walk along the Adriatic in Bar, Montenegro. Then we drove on to Shkoder for a late lunch on the shesh. Then we drove on to our final destination, the hotel across from the airport. Our flight was around 8:30 am the next morning. We got our bags from storage and had a light dinner at the hotel restaurant.
The next day, we walked our three suitcases full of treasures and our carry-on backpacks to the airport, where we checked them to Chicago. The flights were uneventful, and we caught a 5 pm bus to Madison, where a friend picked us up and brought us home. Thus ends our two-year adventure with Peace Corps Kosovo.
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