Montenegro
Sunrise found us entering a new country on our journey (and a new country on the world map): Montenegro. We sailed into the stunningly beautiful Kotorfjord, past the twin islands containing the monastery of St. George and Gospa od Škrpjela, Our Lady of the Rocks. Beyond lay the town of Kotor, improbably squeezed between vertical mountains and the waters of the bay.
Disembarking in Kotor, we were met by our personable guides Rade and Aco, then drove along the shore, past mussel farms, to the village of Perast. There we boarded a boat to Our Lady of the Rocks for a most interesting visit. The island is man-made. In the 15th century, a passing sailor found an icon on a rock on that spot. Subsequently, fishermen brought rocks from the mainland and gradually the new island was created. Amazingly, the original rock still remains beneath the altar of the church, where you can touch it through an opening in the back of the altar.
The evocative church, dedicated to those who live on or around the sea, has exquisite art and other furnishings, including extraordinary Baroque murals on the ceiling by the artist Tripo Kokolja that gave the church the nickname “the Sistine Chapel of the Adriatic.”
Returning to Perast, we toured the small but very fine museum, a former private home with splendid 17th and 18th-century paintings, books, weaponry, clothing, historical records and furniture from Venice. A short walk brought us to St. Nicholas’s Church, with a tall bell tower and a pipe organ that dates to the 17th century.
Next on our agenda was a walking tour of the old town of Kotor. Surrounded by walls built over the millennium between the 9th and 19th centuries, Kotor has been lovingly restored after it was damaged by an earthquake in 1979. Its history is a microcosm of that of the Balkans: it was successively occupied by Illyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Montenegrin kings, Huns, Goths, Serbian kings, Venetians, Napoleon, Russians and Austro-Hungarians.
But now it’s simply Montenegrin, with a relaxed feel, the plazas occupied by cafes, restaurants and boutiques, and lots of history to take in. St. Tryphon’s Cathedral is a masterpiece, even by the elevated standards of the cathedrals of the region. Begun in the 13th century, there are original frescoes still visible.
After lunch, a choice of activities awaited us. Most of us made our tortuous way by coach up a hair-raising sequence of 25 switchbacks to more than 2,700 feet above Kotor, where we had spectacular views of Kotor, the neighboring bay and some of Montenegro’s many mountains.
Our destination was the village of Njeguši, renowned for producing some of the finest pršut — prosciutto — of the region, along with cheese, schnapps, wine, grapes, woolen sweaters and other handicrafts. It was a taste of life in Montenegro’s interior, in a place with just 500 inhabitants.
At the same time, some of our number walked way up and around the walls of Kotor, a distance of almost 5 kilometers. We met up aboard ship, and after dinner sailed southward.
