Burning Desire For FIRE

We hit the turps last night with some of our fellow travellers, so this post is a day late.

This magnificent hall was built in Budapest in 1896, then a few years later it was pulled apart and transported here. This was the starting point of our walking tour of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, on the last day of our tour.

Nearby is this grand hotel, which was built in 1925 to house the passengers on the Orient Express.

In the late19th century, 7 parks were created in a U shape… “ The Green Horseshoe” around the old city.

Even given the green belt, I didn’t really warm to Zagreb as I have to most of the other cities on this tour. We did the walking tour in the Old Cities, but Zagreb is ringed by lots of Brutalist architecture that is never attractive.

Well, apart from in Pyongyang in North Korea, where they had the sense to paint the concrete with pretty colours.

See? The city of Pyongyang, North Korea. This is all Brutalist architecture from Russia, yet the city looks so lovely. I took this in 2018, from the top of Juche Tower.

oops. Back to Zagreb!

This cathedral is The Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary, Saint Stephen and Saint Ladislav. This area has had bad luck with churches.

Everything in the area here was destroyed by the mongol army in 1242, including the Catholic cathedral that was built here. Genghis Khan’s grandson was the leader of the Mongol army.

Can you imagine? Croatia is a LONG way from Mongolia.

Zagreb was hit by a big earthquake during the Covid lockdowns, and the cathedral was one of many buildings that were destroyed or severely damaged. Our local guide said that the quake happened on a Sunday morning, when the streets would normally have been busy. Due to everyone being inside when the quake struck, there was only one casualty.

Walls 16th century against the Ottomans. Completely encircling the cathedral, so it wouldn’t be destroyed like with the Mongols.

It’s amazing. People who actually learn from history. It worked, by the way.

This is the Bloody Bridge street. Old Zagreb was formed by two villages on either side of a river. There was no love lost between them, and it reached fever pitch one day in the 1500s, when a fight broke out between them that was so fierce that the bridge was covered in blood and even the river below ran red.

This is the only gate remaining of the original wall that encircled one of the villages. There man who devised the wall, after the Mongols had paid a visit, allowed all settlers to be exempt from taxes. All they had to do in return was to help build the wall.

A couple of hundred years ago there was a terrible fire here and most of the buildings were destroyed. One thing survived… a painting of the Virgin Mary and her baby. Clearly this was a miracle.

Since then, the painting has been on display at the gate and has reportedly been quite effective in answering prayers. A little church, with pews and lit candles is here, tucked away within the doorway of the old wall.

See that spiky thing on the roof? That’s to ward off witches.
I’ll bet it still works.

We rounded the corner to see this church. The amazing roof tiles were put on in the late 1800s, and the city keeps them sparkling clean. The left coat of arms is Croatia and the right is Zagreb, the city on a hill.

After this, we had free time for around 3 hours, which frankly, was a lot of time for a city like this. There were a couple of things we wanted to do.

One was to ride the world’s smallest funicular. It runs for a whopping 52 metres and takes 63 seconds. It costs 63 cents.

It took us back up to this tower, where at 12 midday every day, a cannon is fired to mark the time.

I had to use Lyndall’s video here, as I started filming a second too late.

Then, it was a short walk to get to this museum. Jake had mentioned this place a couple of days ago, and it sounded interesting.

Basically, a long-term artistic couple broke up and decided to put some of their belongings on exhibit, with printed explanations of their significance. Soon, other people started bringing in their own stuff, and the museum was born.

There are a few other spin offs around the world, but this is the original one.

Thankfully, each exhibit has an English explanation.

The exhibits are changed fairly regularly.

Some are funny, some are sad and some are just plain weird. There’s something for everyone.

This is Slovenia/the Balkans breaking up with Melania Trump.

Afterwards, Blogless Sandy and I took our bread roll lunches from the breakfast bar along to a bench under some trees. We passed by these workmen restoring this beautiful building. There was lots of restoration work going on in the city.

Some of you may remember when Megan and I were travelling in Canada, and we had a disagreement about whether this was called a pavilion or a rotunda. It turns out that in Canada, it’s called a gazebo.
I took this photo and sent it to her, saying, “ I’m going to go sit in this pavilion. Sandy’s carrying on walking because she’s looking for a rotunda.”

The next morning, Megan comes back with, “Did you look for a bandstand or a gazebo?”

Nice. I replied, “Unfortunately, we didn’t have a thesaurus within easy reach.”

😂😂

We have over 30 hours of travel time looming ahead of us. By Saturday, we should be back home.

Dad joke of the day:

This was taken from the bus this morning, on our way to Lake Bled. I didn’t think we’d be seeing snow-capped mountains in May!

I’d vaguely heard that Lake Bled was pretty, but staying true to my default pattern of liking to be surprised on my holidays, I hadn’t looked up any pictures.

So yes. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the colour of the water. This was my first view of the lake. It was in the gardens leading down from the castle.

Bled Castle is a fairytale castle rising up over the lake. It looks extraordinary.
It was an optional tour, but I elected not to go in.
It seems that Bled Castle is even MORE sanitised and Disney-fied than the castle in Ljubljana. I knew I’d be infuriated if I went in, so I walked the grounds, chatted with people and heard about some beef that was going on in the other TripaDeal group.
I love a bit of goss.

Look. At. That. Castle.
Look at the colour of the lake.
Stunning.

We were rowed across the lake to a little island.

Here’s Jake and me.

A cuckoo clock house.

This was Tito’s villa. He had villas all over Yugoslavia, back in the day.

The most notable thing about the island was these stairs. When people get married on the island, the tradition says that the groom has to carry his bride up these stairs to prove his virility. I’m telling you, any groom doing this would need months of training.

Picture perfect.

Taken from the café where we ordered the famous Bled Cream Cake.

Blogless Sandy liked it, but I found it a bit bland. It was like a whipped vanilla slice with a ton of whipped cream on top. But this is why we travel – to try new things.

It’s impossible to come here and not take hundreds of pictures of the castle. Look at these colours. It’s incredible.

omg! How lucky am I? Blogless Sandy went for a walk along the lake, while I went in and had a look.

I don’t know a huge deal about Banksy; just pretty much what everyone knows.

I think everyone remembers this…

This was my favourite.

Now this was something I’d never heard about before.

Of course a lake this beautiful has swans.

It was a lovely day. No one could get over the beauty of this place.

We left Bled mid afternoon and arrived in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, for dinner.

Only one more day on the tour before we start the long trek home.

Dad joke of the day:

This cathedral, built in 1860, is a very handy landmark, due to its central location and distinctive colour. Next door is a Franciscan monastery that’s still operating.

It’s austere inside, because of the next door neighbours. Apparently, Franciscans aren’t very flashy people.

1895- earthquake. It pretty much levelled the town. This is where the more Art Nouveau buildings were put in.

Adam and Eve after the expulsion from paradise.

Prometheus. I bet he regrets giving fire to humanity. This looks painful.

This has been banned on the bridges in Paris, but it still goes on here.

Dragon bridge 

Built for Sisi’s husband, for the 40th year of his rule. He ended up ruling for 68 years.

The little figures under the lamps are gryphons.

There are markets all over the place here!

800 years ago the first church was built here. This current cathedral is only 300 years old. Unlike the pink church, this one is very baroque, so we were told.

In 1990 the first Slavic pope John Paul visited, and they installed these fancy doors for him.

Roman tombstones 1800 years old are included around the walls.

100 years ago, the river was regulated. It used to be shallower and wider.  It used to flood. No one swims here, because the temperature of the water is the same as in the caves. 10C.

New Square… only a few hundred years old.

This wall used to shield a German monastery, built in the 13 th century.

After WW2, they had to leave. Nowadays, it’s a secondary school for design students.

After the walking tour, we had a couple of hours to spend before we headed off to the countryside to the caves.

We had to look at the baroque church.

Yes, it was very… decorative. There was barely a square inch that didn’t have something painted, gilded or sculpted on it.

He looks bored.

On the way to lunch we spotted these two guys from the seminary.

This toddler was DONE.

So was this bear. Too many pancakes, I suppose.

Before we knew it, we were sitting in a railway car, about to head into the Postojna Caves. ( My face is red because I had 4 layers of wool. The caves are only 10C.)

There was a bit of excitement before the tour, because Mary ( in the photo with us) caught a team of pickpockets in action. She was walking behind a woman wearing a backpack, and noticed that the zips on the backpack were gently being unzipped by a young “couple” walking close behind her. The minute she called out, the couple peeled off and disappeared into the crowd.

Wow. We all hear about it, but of course, we all get complacent when nothing happens. We all took notice when we heard about it, that’s for sure!

43 million people have come through here since the caves were opened for tourism back in the late 1800’s.

These caves are worth visiting. There’s a 10 minute train ride to get down to where all the fun is, then there’s a 2km walk through the caves.

This one looks like a lion.

People for scale.

Russian war bridge. It was built by Russian POWs in WW1.

What a dark, cold and miserable job it must have been.

Stalagmites and stalactites grow at the rate of 1 cm every 100 years. The one on the right is 50,000 years old.

They don’t know how old the one on the left is. They’re not sure how deep it goes, and they’d have to cut a hole in the centre to measure it. No one is prepared to do that. Safe to say, it’s VERY old.

Someone asked what happens to the caves when there are earthquakes. The short answer is: nothing.

The shape of the caves means that nothing disturbs them. People were in the cave the last time there was a huge earthquake here, and they felt nothing.

On the train on the way back out, I saw this. A nice touch of whimsy!

Blogless Sandy caught this view of the Slovenian alps on the bus ride back.

Jake said that there hasn’t been snowfalls on the alps in May for years.

Just fortunate, I guess…

Dad joke of the day:

Today we woke up to a bright and sunny day, much to Jake’s chagrin.
Today we were taken to a pretty little village built on top of waterfalls.

I wonder how long you would have to live here before you stopped noticing the sound?

I sent this video to Morgan. Remember how he designed our Icelandic itinerary so we would see as many waterfalls as possible?

He replied, “Where is this place? I want to move there!”

This is taken from the bridge above the town.

It was pretty, but I couldn’t help wondering how often the village gets flooded.

Then we were on our way to Slovenia.

Slovenia is the most economically advanced country in the Balkans. They were the first to join the EU.
The war in the 90’s only lasted 10 days here, as opposed to 5 years in Croatia and Bosnia, so they had a bit of a head start.

We have 2 nights in Ljubljana.

The first thing we saw when we got to the central square was an emu. Or ostrich. Either way, it was strange.

Later, we saw a kangaroo…

Tomorrow we have a walking tour in the morning, and then in the afternoon we’re going on an optional tour to see the caves.
Ljubljana has a castle. The only time we’ll be able to see it is today. You all know how much I love an authentic castle. This one was perched on a hill overlooking the town, and we decided to take the funicular up to have a look around.

It was supposed to cost around 25 euros for the castle admission and the funicular ride, but when we got there, we found that the castle was FREE!

My favourite price!

There was some sort of celebration at the castle, which was all good news to me.

It was even better news once we’d ridden up the funicular and started walking through the castle.

It was all very sanitised. Barely anything authentic had been spared at the castle, so it was more a Disney version of what a castle should be. I was so glad we’d got in for free. If I’d paid money for this “castle “ I wouldn’t have been happy.

As it was, we climbed the tower, saw the snow- capped mountains, watched the entertainment and escaped before the crowds.

One of the entertainments was a bird show. Behind the scenes, here is a bird of prey with a hood on, just as they did in the olden days.

A view from the tower of the courtyard below, while the hunting birds show was on.

Another view from the tower, this time looking out over the town. There are some very pretty buildings here.

After we left the castle, Blogless Sandy and I walked around the central part of town for a while.

Church bells were ringing for ages. I wondered if they were marking the anniversary of a battle or something, considering that they were celebrating something at the castle.

We ended up having dinner beside the river, under a big willow tree.

It’s a pretty place; I’m looking forward to our city tour tomorrow.

Dad joke of the day:

Today, the long-threatened bad weather finally arrived. We counted ourselves VERY lucky that the torrential rain wasn’t falling when we were walking on the limestone streets of Kotor, and Dubrovnik. We would have been slipping and sliding all over the place.

As it was, today was a city called Zadar, and then a 7 km walk through the National Park of Plitvice, where Jake spends lots of time when he isn’t working.

Poor Jake! He was looking forward to showing us his happy place in all its glory, but the rain was almost biblical.

Zadar is known for its Sea Organ. We jumped off the bus, layered up for the 9C weather, and we scurried after him like soggy ducklings as he led us to it.

As we drew closer, we could hear it over the rain.

I took a video so you could hear it too, but unfortunately when I played it back later, the only audible sound was the rain hitting my umbrella.

I tried embedding a vid from YouTube, but the hotel’s internet isn’t letting me do it. So, go ahead and google Zadar Sea Organ. It’s a lovely sound.

“The Sea Organ in Zadar, Croatia, is a massive, wave-powered musical instrument. Architect Nikola Bašić built a series of hollow marble steps along the coastline. Beneath the steps are 35 organ pipes of varying lengths, sizes, and tilts that use the kinetic energy of ocean waves and wind to generate continuous, harmonized chimes.”

After that, we had an hour to view the town. To be honest, it wasn’t very enticing. If the weather was good, a walk along the harbour would be nice, but the wind whipping in from the sea put paid to that idea. 

I walked into the town square to view the Roman ruins.

Fun fact: nobody knew that Zadar was built on the remains of a Roman town. It wasn’t discovered until the city was bombed by the Allies in WW2. 

When they were clearing up, people started finding limestone and artifacts that didn’t belong. 

The more they dug, the more they found.

I liked this story, so I headed towards the square. One moments inattention, and I stepped into a very deep puddle.

Wet feet.

The ruins were nowhere near as good as in Sofia, so I kept wandering.

This statue looks as disgusted with the weather as I was.

Finally, after buying lunch to eat on the bus, I conceded defeat and found a coffee place with a welcoming open fire.

We drove through the countryside for 2 hours until we reached Plitvice National Park.

I was sitting up near the front of the bus. I looked out through the windscreen. Rain was still bucketing down… if anything, it was even heavier than before.

If I’ve learned anything about myself in the last 62 years, it’s that I HATE getting rained on. I love a good storm if I’m sitting in a warm room looking out, or if I’m under the tin roof on my verandah.

But when I’m walking in it? No.

I would have been miserable every step of the way.

I was one of the 5 sensible people who went back to the hotel with the bus. One couple got all layered up, hopped off the bus into the pouring rain, locked eyes with each other and without words, jumped back in the bus again.

I was able to use the hairdryer to dry my shoes, socks and jeans while Blogless Sandy was out battling the elements.

She’ll have open slather when she gets back.

I’m going to wander out and find a bar in the hotel, where no doubt I’ll find the others who came back with the bus.

A warming glass of red wine sounds like just the thing. 

Dad joke of the day:

Bosnia and Herzegovina has the same mountainous terrain as the other countries we’ve been in. It’s dotted with little villages, with some obviously being abandoned. Here, old stone walls are left on their own.

The quick answer as to why this country has such strange name is “politics.” The longer answer is that after the war in the 90’s, Bosnia had 3 major religions. The muslims and orthodox were fine with the name of Bosnia, but the Catholics , who were mainly in the Herzegovina region, wanted recognition.

So “ Bosnia and Herzegovina” it is.

Our local guide was proud to announce that Mostar has 300 sunny days a year.

Not today! Blogless Sandy and I ended up buying umbrellas as useful souvenirs.

Old Town was built in the Ottoman Empire

WW1 started here in the capital city of Sarajevo.

“We’re not proud of that.” 

Mostar was heavily affected by the war. The street we crossed was the line between the two sides. If you keep your eyes peeled, many buildings still have pockmarks in them from gunfire during the war.

Refugees from the war sometimes own property. They’re understandably reluctant to spend money on buildings they’re now half a world away from. Plus these particular buildings are heritage listed. They were originally in the Austrian- Hungarian style, which would cost a fortune to rebuild.

So they remain like this.

Our local guide said that his family fled the town when the war broke out, and he himself was born in Germany. When they returned, the whole city was filled with rubble. He and his friends, when playing soccer, used to use unexploded grenades for goals.

“We didn’t know it was dangerous.”

3 presidents here. “3 corrupt presidents.” Between the bickering and corruption, nothing gets accomplished in a timely fashion.

The Old Town is a UNESCO heritage site. Everything looks as it did before the war.

Even the old ladies shopping for tablecloths.

Stone roofs protect from the strong winds here. The town is in a valley set between very steep hills. The wind whips through.

1566 when the old bridge was built. 

The original architect used egg shells and stone, so the first 2 bridges collapsed.

Sultan Suleman told the architect “if it collapses again, I’ll have to kill you.”

So the architect, keen to keep breathing, used molten lead and stone for the third time, which worked.

The architect was so nervous that it would collapse again that he ran away just before the bridge was finished, so he never got to see his masterpiece. It stood for 400 years.

9 November 1995 it was bombed and destroyed by the war. People tried to protect it, but it was the most meaningful structure to the people, so the opposition felt that they had to destroy it.

20% of the original stone was used, and molten lead and stone were used again.

The original plans were used.

The raised strips on the bridge is for the donkeys. They used to bring everything in on donkeys’ backs, and this stops them slipping.

Plasma flavoured ice cream, anyone?

After we wandered around the market for a while, Blogless Sandy and I walked across the bridge and took the steps down to the beach by the riverbank.

There we saw the bridge in all its glory.

After yet another border crossing, we were back in Croatia and heading for Split, with many a nervous glance aimed at the steely grey clouds massing above. We have a nature walk booked in a national park tomorrow, and the weather forecast is pretty dire.

Still, we were afraid we’d get rained on today, but we’ve been lucky.

We made it into Split with a bit of time up our sleeves, so we checked into the hotel before heading down to the harbour to see the Roman palace. It wasn’t what I was expecting…

Diocletian’s palace was built in 3 AD to house Diocletian, his wife and daughter, and the servants and soldiers who served them. All up, around 200 people.

He was the last Roman emperor to persecute the Christian’s, and he was reportedly pretty vicious about it.
After he died, his palace was gradually taken over by the common folk, who over time moved in and started repurposing the building materials here.

Everywhere you look, you can see modern dwellings next to columns like these that have been moved to help support newer dwellings.

See?

Other things have been left alone for centuries.

This place has been continuously occupied since the 3rd century. Nowadays, around 3,000 people live here.

We rounded a corner, and there was a wedding! Jake said it was pretty small for a Croatian wedding.
“They tend to go for 36 – 48 hours. They start drinking in the morning and then they don’t stop until it’s over!”

This is reputed to be Diocletian’s bath.
It was found in the basement floor, which ironically is the best preserved part of the whole palace. Unlike the ground floor, which had people all over it for centuries, the basement floor was quickly filled with rubble and rubbish, which made it impassable.
It wasn’t until the 1950’s that it was finally cleared out.

What’s also ironic… or perhaps karmic … is what happened to Diocletian’s tomb.

He was popped into a sarcophagus, as was usual back then, and was laid to rest in this octagonal tomb.

But all too soon, the Christians took the building over and used it as a church. Sometime in the 7th century, they hauled what was left of him out of the coffin and chucked him into the sea.

The sarcophagi you can see around the outside of the building are all Christian clergy.

When the Romans were building the palace, they were on a tight time frame, so they went over to Egypt’s Valley of the Kings and stole some columns and sphinxes to hurry the job along. These things were from 3 BC, so when I say there’s a mishmash of styles, I wasn’t overstating.

There are many buildings in the Venetian style of the 1500’s. It shouldn’t all work together, but oddly, it does.

Outside one of the gates is this massive statue of Bishop Gregor, a man who championed for the translation of the Scripture into people’s native languages.

I don’t know if this works, but I’m touching his toe for luck. Between this and touching the statue’s nose yesterday in Dubrovnik, I should be the luckiest woman alive!

This was an interesting place to visit. Blogless Sandy adored it.

I was torn between wanting the ancient Roman palace to be pristine, yet respecting the people who saw available building supplies and turned them to good use.

Tomorrow, we have a weather forecast of 9 degrees and rain, with a 7 km walk around a lake in the National Park.

Hmmm. Not sure how this is going to go…

Dad joke of the day:

Today was the day we’ve all been waiting for. We were spending the day in the Old Town of Dubrovnik.

Game of Thrones fans would know that the Kings Landing scenes were shot here. 

I read all of the GOT novels, but only watched the first series… (and the last couple of episodes of the whole show to see why people were upset.)

The Kings Landing scenes were enough to spark my interest into coming here.

Dubrovnik was founded in the 7th Century.

Napoleon conquered the city after hundreds of years of aristocratic independence. The walls around the city, as well as diplomacy, served Dubrovnik well until The French turned up.

Napoleon built a fortress overlooking the Old Town which is still there today. A chair lift goes up to it, but we didn’t visit it. We stuck to the Old Town and the old fort.

St Blaise is the city’s patron saint, and he’s found all over the place here. He’s always pictured with a model of the city in his hand, protecting it.

In 1667 there was a massive earthquake here, and parts of the city were destroyed.

The church survived the earthquake, but a fire decimated it. The only thing that survived was a silver statue of St Blaise. Of course, it was proclaimed as a miracle.

Today, the statue is coated in gold. It’s on display, but you have to pay money to see it, and it’s not included in the Dubrovnik Day Pass, so we didn’t see it.

Incidentally, if you ever come here, get a Dubrovnik Day Pass. It costs 40 euros, but it costs 40 euros just to walk the wall. When you factor in admission to the fort, the monastery, and all of the other things you can see, it’s definitely great value.

Here’s the first view of the town. Main st was first established in the 10th century. We were directed to look at the strange little stone down by the roadside.

The legend is that if you’re able to jump on top of this and stay there for a few seconds, you’ll be lucky in love forever.

Before you ask, I didn’t try my luck. I love it when people find love, but I don’t want a partner for myself. I think, after 29 years of being single, that I would be very hard work for any guy unfortunate enough to try his luck. 🤣

The fountain was built in the 15th century. The water is still drinkable and is free to anyone everywhere. Later in the day, we filled up our water bottles and the water was chilled and delicious.

I also like how there’s a dog statue on the top. It makes a change from all of the cat worship in the cities we’ve seen so far!

This is the Rector ‘s palace. They chose a new rector every month, to avoid corruption.

The city keys were given to him every night for safekeeping.

When the weather was bad, no work was done here, in case decisions were made that were badly affected by how they felt. When the sun came out again, the council would reconvene.

There was a huge earthquake in 1667.

This street wasn’t affected. See the stones on the street? They’re limestone and they are very smooth, due to the millions of footsteps they’ve had walking on them over the centuries.
I’m glad it wasn’t raining today! I imagine they might get a little slippery.

This isn’t just a tourist spot, though. People live here, usually in the second and third floors above the shops. Look at the line of washing fluttering above the street.

Apparently, Fortunate Frogdancer struck again and we had a beautiful day in Dubrovnik. The rain is going to hit tomorrow…

Jesuit steps: this is the scene of the walk of shame that Cersei took in Game of Thrones.

Most gardens are simply in pots.

Ugh. Yuck. Bananas. The Devil’s food.

Little cafés and shops are scattered throughout the town.

There’s also little hits of whimsy as well.

If I lived here, I’d SO have this sculpture on my balcony!

After our guided tour was over, we had 6 hours here. The first thing we did was leave the town and go over to the fort.
This was a 15th century build, but fortifications have been here for around a thousand years. Humans are a peaceful species, aren’t we?

“Freedom is not on sale for all the gold and treasure in the world.”

This is inscribed on the fort, which is a measure of the hundreds of years this city was independent.

A view of the city from the top of the fort.

Some of the walls were a bit tall…

Some of the people from our group didn’t go across to the fort, which was a shame. The sea was sparkling clear and the views of the walled city and the islands were spectacular.

The monastery – free with our day pass. It was a bit of a haven from the heat and crowds outside.

In the museum there, a reminder of the war.

Marin Držić, Dubrovnik’s Shakespeare. Guess which part of him brings luck when you touch it?

Handrails in the Rector’s Palace. I guess a good Dad joke is timeless.

Then 2pm arrived, which was the time Jake recommended that we walk the wall.
More bloody steps upwards…

Here was the view as we began.

The fort from the walled city. Just look at the colour of the sea.

It’s amazing how narrow the streets are.

I had a choice… do I keep going, or do I climb the tower?

Of course I climbed the tower! The view was incredible.

Look! A veggie garden! The only one I saw all day.

And zoom in to the middle of the picture. You’ll see a restaurant on top of a building. Imagine how lovely it must be to have a meal, surrounded on all sides by the terracotta rooftops.

This is Blogless Sandy and I clinking some bubbles after our 90 minute walk along the wall. A well-earned treat.

After a wonderful day, we drove across the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dad joke of the day:

Today we spent a few hours at the wonderful Old Town of Kotor. It was established 2,000 years ago.

It has been ruled by… “you name it, they ruled it!”

Square of the Weapons. 

There was so much fighting throughout the Balkans , especially during the Ottoman Empire.

700 years.  It ended in 1912 in Albania.

Venice was running Kotor for commerce. Albania fell to the Turks, but everyone else continued to fight. The ruler here allowed everyone to come and buy weapons, but they had to leave at a certain time.

If anyone did the wrong thing, they were subjected to public humiliation in the square.

Baroque palace. 

With all the money flowing into the town from the weapons, 110 families became rich .

Pima family had the longest balcony here, apart from the Prince’s.

This family were extremely distinguished… poets, businessmen etc, but now they’ve died out.

This cathedral is the heart of Roman Catholic Montenegro.

Patron Saint of the town is St Tripun, a Greek teenager who was martyred in the 300’s for being a Christian. He had his head chopped off and everything.

It’s giving me Notre Dame vibes.

An earthquake scoring 7 on the Richter scale destroyed the town in the late 1970’s. It took them over 20 years to rebuild the Old Town.

They’ve done a very good job. This place is wonderful.

This little church was built in 1195 . It’s dedicated to St Luke.

Interestingly, Orthodox and Roman Catholic both share it, which doesn’t often happen.

3,000 souls are buried here. They were cremated before being interred here, with large numbers occurring during the Black Death.

After our guided tour, we had a couple of hours to wander around. Blogless Sandy wanted to climb a certain way up the mountain path to see the view over the city. 

Not being a mountain goat, I wasn’t filled with glee about doing this, but I knew I’d regret it if we didn’t go. She pointed to a spot on the map and we set off.

This is as high as we got. There was a man charging 15 euros to go higher.

It was my lucky day! No way we were going to pay that.

There are sections of the old wall that you can walk on.  We ambled along here, 

This is very much a tourist town, but as you can see, people still live here.

Here’s a close up of the city walls as they wend their way up to the top of the hill where the fort is. Two thousand steps were mentioned, but that seems a bit too few for me.

The town is squashed in between impossibly high hills, as well as the sea.

This cat statue is very appropriate. I’ve never seen so many stray cats as I have in the Balkans. They’re very friendly, though, and both stray cats and dogs are looked after.

We had a few minutes up our sleeve before we left, so we walked along the harbour.

I took this shot to show you the cliffs. The town is encircled.

After a 90 minute border crossing into Croatia, we arrived at magical Dubrovnik

This was our view of the Old Town as we drove into Dubrovnik.

omg. Can’t wait till tomorrow.

Our guide recommended a restaurant by the water.

It was a glamorous way to celebrate reaching Dubrovnik.

Dad joke of the day: