Kotor and Lady of the Rocks

We had a good breakfast and left on the bus for Kotor at 9. There we met a local guide, Ivana, who took us round the town for 1.5 hours. It’s a beautiful little place with lovely old buildings and narrow alleys but horribly weighed down by so many tourists. Both Viking and Celebrity Cruises were being herded round in very large groups, plus there were lots of bus tours as well.

Then we had 1.5 hours on our own so went up the city walls for the promised view of the bay. This didn’t materialise as the Viking cruise ship was blocking it all. We entered a couple of churches and admired the silver and wooden carvings. We also went upstairs in the hotel we were in last night to see the gothic window, braving the grumpy waiter.

In addition to too many tourists they now have too many Turkish tat souvenir shops. Because the cruise ships no longer go to Turkey they have rented rooms to open tacky shops. Ivana also said there are 20,000 Russians living here as it will be an entry to EU when Montenegro joins. She has asked a few why and one said he’d rather go to Spain but it’s too difficult now. She believes the authorities are accepting “incentives “.

Round the old area new concrete buildings have keen erected. The narrow roads round the water can’t cope with the amount of traffic. It’s a lovely town but the victim of being considered one of the most beautiful in Europe.

The bus took us to Perast, a pretty village built during Venetian times. We had a very poor lunch. My Greek salad had lots of cucumber, a few bits of tomato, some cubes of feta and 3 olives. No dressing. No bread. Totally tasteless. We sat with a Welsh couple who work in care.

Then we got a small boat to take us to Lady of the Rocks, a church built on a man-made island. A painting of Mary and Jesus had been found by a sailor on a rock so he decided to made an island by putting rocks down then 200 years later there were enough rocks on which to build a church. The painting was there as well as many silver votifs left by those grateful to have been spared some catastrophe. There were also offerings of guns, keys, brides’ bouquets and much else. There was a sewn picture which (allegedly) has the sower’s hair being used for the hair - from dark to white as she aged, waiting for her sailor husband to return.

The boat brought us back to the hotel which looks Splendido from the outside. We saw an enormous cruise ship go past, dwarfing the hotel after its afternoon at Kotor.

It was cool but didn’t rain