🎵🎵🎵 Up Above the Bay… of Kotor
The Bay of Kotor is surrounded by a minimal stretch of flat space before being surrounded by mountains. The mountains are steep and impressive looking. You can hike up to the top in some areas, some areas are accessible by a road and/or cable car, and some are completely inaccessible.
The first hike up above the Bay that we did was along the ridgeline along the mountain peak across from Kotor and Dobrota. We could have hiked up to the ridge from Kotor and down at the other end, ending up in Tivat. But we were not interested in the steep ascent/descent. This ridgeline was accessible by vehicle. Well, mostly.
We drove most of the way up, parking in front of some abandoned military building or something. We stopped to explore it first. I felt like I was back at work, entering a dark, wet building with dubious structural integrity. We walked around a little bit, but I was not keen to do too much exploring. The floors for the upper level were collapsing and there were holes for little curious girls to fall through all over the place. We made our way back out and up to the trail.
We thought we were on a trail, but turned out we were accidentally crossing through private farmland. Oops! We didn’t realize until we were almost out of it. Though it was super interesting to see all the wild boar on the property. I’ve never seen any outdoors like this, let alone dozens of them. The old farmer came out and watched us, and we tried to communicate we were sorry. He waved us off and didn’t seem too troubled. I’m guessing we were not the first people to make this mistake, considering on our map this route was labelled as a trail. And looked it from the road!
He had some dogs, including a mother and her two pups. They followed us for a good chunk of our walk before heading back home. We walked to the opposite end of the ridge, up to the peak where we had a picnic lunch before turning back for the car again. It was about a four-hour hike in total, and we got a few gorgeous views of the Bay on each side, as well as the Adriatic Sea out beyond the Bay on the Tivat side. While we are glad we did this hike, it was definitely our least favourite one.
The next hike we did was up the mountain behind Kotor. I have no idea how many dozens of switchbacks we hiked up there. But it was a lot of them! Just as we were in desperate need of a break, we stumbled upon the little goat cheese maker and café, simply called Cheese Shop. It was an elderly couple who lived and worked there. We sat at a table and he convinced us to try shots of his homemade liquor, rakija. He had a grape and a plum version. We got one of each, and he poured a third for himself. We saw him do a shot with the table before ours as we got there and the lady who sat down next to us shortly after we arrived. Given how brutally strong the stuff was and how many shots we assume he must do in a day, it’s no wonder he was one of the happiest and most relaxed people I’ve ever met. He was always full of smiles and “No Problem” to everything!
After trying a tiny sip of each, I left them to Jon and instead switched to beer to enjoy with our packed lunch. The views from his café of the Bay of Kotor were stunning. It was the perfect spot to stop, rest, and enjoy our lunches. And even way up on the mountain, we still managed to find a ton of cats. They’re literally everywhere in Kotor!
After our lunch, we continued up a little but decided to go off laterally and explore an area with ruins and the old defensive castle walls instead of continuing up to the very peak. By the time we were done, we were all hot and ready to head back down to Kotor rather than up further. We loved the ruins and were happy with our exploration choice. This was a beautiful and fun hiking area that we were glad to have done.
The third hike we did in this area was at Lovćen National Park. It’s the first hike we have had to do that we needed to pay for this year, but it was only $6 in total for the four of us, so not a big deal. This mountain is accessible by cable car or road. It was almost an hour to drive up a steep and very narrow road to the top of the mountain, which was how we got up there.
When we got to the top, we stopped at the first trail, an in-and-out trail we did. First, we stopped to have an early picnic lunch. Then headed out to explore. The hiking trail was beautiful! We could have walked along this trail all the way to Kotor if we wanted to spend five hours hiking there, and then probably significantly longer trying to get back up the hill! After about an hour, we turned back towards the car.
We moved on to the next trail we wanted to do, which was a loop route. We parked at a little café and stopped there first for a drink to perk up our energy levels again before we headed out. Cappuccinos for Jon and me, and iced tea for the girls.
The loop took us a couple of hours to complete. It started along the road, which was deserted this time of year, before looping through some gorgeous views. The terrain was varied, which made things interesting and fun. There was the road, gravel paths, grassy paths, some houses, some fields, passing by an old town, through a forest…. Always something new to see along the way. And all of it is gorgeous! Of all four hiking trails we did above the Bay of Kotor, this loop trail was hands down our favourite!
On our way back down the mountain, we decided to stop at a little café to grab a cold drink to cool down on their patio overhanging the mountain and looking down over the Bay of Kotor. The view was stunning! However, we were slightly alarmed at the fact that people were drinking quite heavily here, considering the roads were super narrow and scary to drive on in the best of conditions!
Given how few people I know who have even heard of Montenegro, it wasn’t shocking for us to hear the surprise from locals when we answered them that we are from Canada. The response was almost universal, “We don’t get many Canadians or Americans here”. This is definitely an area I would recommend more Canadians consider exploring! We absolutely love this area and find it so very beautiful and peaceful.