4/7/2019 Kotor walking

It was going to be a sizzler of a day and the old walls of Kotor were calling us to come and climb them, so it would have been sensible to get up early and be on our way, but we slept in while we could and ambled down to breakfast at 9am, having found that there was no water for a shower yet.
We found our leader, Ivan, quietly sitting on his own waiting for us to turn up and chat.

By the time breakfast was over we finally did have water, so had a much appreciated cool shower and dressed, then headed off to town (and the walls).  The result was that we were walking up the walls on a very hot day  at almost the worst time... and boy was it hot!!  It was also humid, so I looked as though I had taken a shower by the time we were only a fraction of the way up.

The building of the walls started in the 9th century and by the 14th century a protective loop was complete around the old town They are more than 4km in length and reach a height of 260m (felt like lots more) . At the top of the ramparts is the fortress of St Ivan/ St John , which is reachable by walking the walls. There is also an old chapel on the way (Our Lady of Health).   There are some ruins of an old village part of the way up, which we could see from the top, looking down, but we never found a way to get to them.

Walk through here and turn left to get to the walls

this is what the track looked like

view from part way up

Looking down on the chapel

Sweaty tired people part way up

almost at the top

Cat snoozing behind the grid and beer for sale on the way up and down.

narrow steps and path on the way down.

where shall we eat???

Good choice ...- Not the man, (ALTHOUGH HE IS A GOOD CHOICE TOO)  - The cold drink. 

We deviated from the main path we had used to come up from the old town, and took a side path off to the powder magazine, finally emerging closer to the far side of the old town, down a series of narrow stairways and paths right past people's front doors and into a square with a few open air eating places - where we decided to take advantage of the cold cider on offer and treated ourselves to one each with lots of ice and some pizza to go with it. .

Profile of our walk. Quite a hill. 

I had to chop off the top (near our hotel) to capture the clearer view of the town and walls walking.

We then wandered through the old town  and ended up on the very far side again having made it up on to the wall close to where we wanted to be, but finding no way of getting down from there.  We would have been very unsuccessful invaders.  From this spot high up , looking down at where we wanted to be, we then  headed away from the direction of home along the narrow tops of the walls, and past a few spots we were not sure if were public or private.   At one stage we ended up walking through a spot with lots of plants. We found the sign saying "private" as we walked out under it.  This made for a long walk home in the heat.

looking down to the right from the walls

Look back... oops.  - We just came from through there. 

Hooray - we made it out.  

After the extreme walking and heat, we enjoyed quiet drinks with harry after a nice tea together. and a relatively early night.

Tomorrow we travel again.