Another new country for us on this trip: Montenegro. We signed up for an Azamara tour which is a walking tour and cable car ride. The meeting point is the same as the other days and we’re quick to move outside once 9:15am hits.
It’s a short walk to meet our guide and she gives us each a box with ear piece so that we can hear her talk. Off to explore Kotor! Our guide has a strong accent and her accent sounds like Russian is her native language although I don’t know if it is. We take escalators down to a tunnel and then back up to the other side. Very civilized. We then need to enter the old town which is a small archway made way before cruise tourists flocked the area. Today there are only two ships in port: Azamara Pursuit and Voyager of the Seas. Our guide tells us the port can handle six ships. I wouldn’t want to be here on a day that there are six ships. The harbor maybe able to fit them, but I can’t imagine how crowded the area would be with that many people.
One of our first stops is St. Tryphon Cathedral. Catholic churches in Europe are strict about covering knees for women and shoulders. I didn’t realize a cathedral was on our tour today and I wasn’t dressed for the occasion. I was wearing a relatively conservative black dress, but my shoulders were visible. My hair was down and I spread it out to cover my shoulders. I wonder if this will pass? I don’t find out because another woman in our group offers me her jacket and I drape that over my shoulders. I’m in! They do have someone at the door patrolling dress code. Like most European cathedrals, it’s beautiful.
Our guide tells us we’re going to the Sea Men museum and you should have seen the look on my face. Really a catholic cathedral straight to the sea men museum? The naughty images I was expecting our instead nautical. We’re inside the Maritime Museum. There are some beautifully decorated guns here, but my favorite part of the museum is its balcony. Balconies aren’t being built on new buildings in Dubrovnik or Kotor because they have too many earthquakes, but this is a piece of information I missed until Brian tells me later. I go onto the balcony and I’m standing by myself above a flock of tourist. I resist the urge to yell, “Hear ye, hear ye” while giving my best princess wave. I feel like Mia in Genovia in my head. In reality, no one really notices I’m up here and I snap a picture and head back inside.
The walking tour lasts for two hours and finally we’re about go to the cable car which is really the reason I signed up for the tour. We meet our bus and take a 15 minute ride to the cable car. It is very similar to the Disney Skyliner in terms of hardware, but instead of flying over marshland, we’re climbing a mountain. It’s a fifteen minute ride up the gondola. We get to the top and we realize our guide has given us hardly anytime up here. We need to be back on the gondola in twenty minutes and need to account five minutes for the wait to get on the gondola. The view is exceptional and it’s more like a 1-2 hour view and not a 15 minute view. There is also an alpine coaster up here, a hiking trail, and a restaurant with an amazing view. I buy a ticket for the alpine coaster and attempt to ride it. The line isn’t long, but I time that it takes 2.5 minutes per coaster that holds one person. I count the people in front of me and realize I don’t have enough time. I look like a chicken as I walk through the line and ask for an exit. I originally was going to book the cable car from a third-party, but decided to book with the cruise line because if we get stuck at the stop, the ship will wait. In retrospect, I wish we’d taken a taxi here and spent as much time as we wanted here and then taken a taxi back. That still leaves some risk, but it would have been a better experience. The top of this mountain top is amazing!
We go back to the ship. We eat lunch, Brian falls asleep in the sun, and I find the only shady spot in the pool. It’s a relaxing afternoon.
We arrived to Montenegro at night which is a bit of a shame because it is an absolutely beautiful landscape to get to this port. Luckily, we see it on the way out. It looks like a fjord, but since this wasn’t carved by a glacier, it’s not a fjord. We learn it is a “Ria.”You can thank me for that word the next time you play scrabble.
Our evening finishes with dinner in the main dining room. I have a beef broth soup, a pork entree, and two desserts. Brian orders two desserts as well and our little table looks fun when they bring them all out!
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