Cruise - day 2 Montenegro

On the second day, June 14th, we ported in Montenegro.  We were supposed to port in Istanbul, but with everything that has been happening there, the cruise line changed the itinerary.  It was probably a good thing.

As we were coming in to port the fog was heavy.

Though I love the way the clouds and fogs look!

Thankfully the sun started to clear up the fog!

I do love the way this fog looks!

We headed up to the 12th deck to have some breakfast before we headed into port.

The rest of the world calls this town Kotor.

But the locals call it Crna Gora.  Montenegro is made up of 80% mountains - hence the monte.  They look black and that is why the Italians in the 11th century called it Montenegro - black mountains.  On the 21st of May it was the 192nd member into the UN.

The  town is 900 feet about sea level.  These are the walls of Kotor.

This was our wonderful tour guide in Kotor!!!  He knew so much and was wonderful!!!

The start of our tour - everybody refreshed and ready to go!!

With all the tours going on, we had to wait just a little bit for the bus.  Dad and Al people watching.

These are the more walls of Kotor.  To get to the top of the wall there are 1,420 stairs to the top.

The first place that he took us was Our Lady of the Rocks.  It is the island on the right in the picture above.

It was built in 1725.  It is the same now as it was then.  It is a man made island.

Of course we had to take a boat over there, the kids were excited to get on the boat!

All aboard!!!!

Al just chilling on the boat, enjoying the sunshine!

Julie and David enjoying the scenery!

Dad and Mom - the Patriarch and Matriarch of the family!!

This building on the other island is for monks.  They still live there and is closed to the public.

This is the shortest distance between the islands on the bay, instead of driving all around the bay,  you can take a ferry across.

The boys checking out the island.  One nice thing with our private tour guide we were able to get to the island faster so there wasn't anybody else on the island yet.

Michael and Aunt Julie enjoying the vacation!!!!

We headed into the church.  It has a great story.  On the 22nd of July 1452, two brothers  were going around the sea and saw on a rock an icon of Virgin Mary.  They brought it back with them and showed it to their family.  The icon then disappeared and went back to the sea rock.  This happened three times.  They decided it was a sign and they needed to build a church in the middle of the sea.  It took 200 years to build the island, bringing rocks and sinking old ships to build it up.

Sailors called Virgin Mary "star over the sea."  The silver votive plates are given to Virgin Mary.

There are over 2000 of these in the small church.  Each silver votive tells the story of the captain.

The altar was handmade from 18th century Italian marble.

When a couple gets married in this church, the bride leaves a piece of the bouquet in the church.

These are the two brothers that found the icon and said that this church needed to be built.

AJ noticed that on this painting there were three hands and asked our guide about it.  He said that in the old days they used to paint over old paintings and it had warn down so you could see the old painting through the new one.

These are old relics that they have found around the island.

These are old Roman relics that were found in Montenegro.

Look at that water and how beautiful the view is!!

This is amazing to me.  A wife of a captain used silk from Japan and China.  There are 650 stiches per square centimenter.  She used gold and silver string and even put her own hair in it.  It took her 25 years to complete, so there are brown, gray and white hair in it from her.  It was finished in 1828.  She was praying for safe return of her husband, who never made it home.

AJ, Mom, Dad and David looking out over the sea.

My little man, not so little anymore, but still just as cute!!!

The kids asked our captain if they could sit on the front of the boat and as you can see the answer was yes!!  They enjoyed the ride back to land.

We were trying to figure out what all these were in the water.  Our guide told us that they grow mussels and oysters.  It is only 70 feet deep and the clean water, that comes from the mountains, and the salt water mix to make them grow.  Pretty neat.

This is the shortest distance between the islands on the bay, 900ft, instead of driving all around the bay,  you can take a ferry across.  It was called "The Passage of the Iron Chains."  This was the one way into the bay and the iron chains were used to block the passage from pirates and make people pay taxes when they came in.

At this time of year, there usually isn't any water coming down from the mountain.  But the day before we arrived, it poured down rain.  We were lucky we didn't show up the day before because we then wouldn't have our beautiful blue skies!

The family on the ferry headed to the other side.

Dad dreaming about his next boat!  There is a 600 yacht capacity and used to be the arsenal for Yugoslavia.

We figured if all of us go in, maybe we could get a big enough boat for all of us.  :-)

Very peaceful on the waterfront!!!  I could get used to this.

As we were waiting for the bus, we decided to see if Gabby was taller then me yet.  Not quite, but she is getting there!

This is the biggest tourist beach in Montenegro, Budva.  There are 32 beaches in Budva.  There are 30,000 people normally in Budva, but in July and August it goes up to 300,000.  It is a small country, only 14,000 square km.  It is about the size of Northern Ireland or Connecticut.

Next we headed to Perast, it is a small Baroque town.  There are 400 inhabitants inside the old walls.  There is also a huge hotel right behind us that has 400 Greek graves under the hotel.

AJ heading into the old town - love his smile!!!

 Here is the square of churches.  The picture on the left is all that is left of one church.  The one on the right is the Holy Trinity Church.  It is a 9th century church and you can see the three bells on top for the trinity.

 This is the other side of the town.  It is on the water and you can see the remnants of the old wall.

 You can see how small the "streets" are. 

After a walk through the town, it was time for some lunch.  The boys enjoying some of the local beer!

The cousins enjoying their local cuisine!!

The adults enjoying the local cuisine as well!!!  It was really good food!!

My brother Al and me!!!  So cool to be in a new country with my brother!

As we were heading back down the mountain, the tour guide said it might be a little slow going because there might be cows on the road.  And as we were heading down, sure enough there were lots of cows along the road, but thankfully none on the road!

Most of the crew on top of the hill.  You can see our crew ship in the background.  We were down two kids because they were sleeping on the bus.

I thought maybe I would cash in on David's life insurance while we were so high up!  ;-)

I decided he was worth more alive!!!  LOL

Such a beautiful view!!  I am still amazed that cruise ships fit.  Our guide says there can be up to 7 cruise ships in a day.  It was busy enough with one, I couldn't imagine with that many.

One of the sleeping kids.  I wonder how they sleep like that sometimes.  I wish I could!

You can see the wall as it heads up the mountain.

This is the Sea Gate, one of three into the walled city, was built in 1555.  It was built in the 1st century BC by the Romans.  There are 1000 people inside the old town.  Of that 70% are Catholics, 15% Muslims and 5% Roman Catholics.  He said they all make it work and get along.

Gabby and Kaitlyn found a place to sit down for a bit.  It might have been a little too big for them.  :-)

This clock tower was built in 1602 by Venetians.  In 1800s, Austrians bought  new mechanism and it is still working after 200 years.  A family owned shop is in the bottom of it and guess what they do?!?  They make and fix clocks and watches!

We do LOVE lions!!!!

This is the 12th century Cathedral built in 1166.  It is St Trifan - Roman Catholic Church.  It was restored about 20 years ago.

As you can see, sailors had the same tradition here as Our Lady Of the Rock, with the silver votive telling about their journeys.

You can see the beautiful carvings around the church!

I LOVE this stained glass with the dove of peace and the beautiful colors!!!

The relics of St Trifan came here in 1809.

This is Orthodox square, where this church, St Lucas was built in 1195.  It was built as Roman Catholic.  For 200 years it had two altars, one for Roman and one for Orthodox.  This church has no seats in it.

The family listening to wonderful facts about the town!

I love the look of this little balcony, so pretty!!

Only four of us headed up part of the stairs to get this fantastic view!!!  David enjoying it!!

This church is up a little farther than we went.  It is 600 stairs to get there.  On Sunday, no churches were open in town.  All the towns people had to hike up the 600 steps to this church because of the plague and trying to keep it away. 

David, Kaitlyn and I listening to the guide.  Al is taking the picture.  It was a nice walk up the steps.  After that we headed back down the stairs and thought it would be great to have a little bit of ice cream!

When we arrived back on the boat, it was time for a little bit of swimming.

Kaitllyn and AJ drawing at dinner.  We decided to head back to the Garden room for dinner because we LOVE our servers!

It was Al and Julie's 19th wedding anniversary today.  So Mom and Dad brought presents!!!

They didn't want to leave David and I out since our anniversary is in August.  :-)

As we were eating dinner, this was our view from the window!

We also sailed by Our Lady of the Rock as we were leaving.

Our wonderful server, Geneniveve and her fellow servers sang to Al and Julie!!

They even brought an anniversary cake!!!  It was very cool!!!

They really got to know us and they knew that Michael only liked chocolate chip cookies, so they brought A LOT of them for him for dessert!!

A beautiful sunset as we were heading back out to sea.

When we went back to our room we found this great towel animal!!!  He even put  the sunglasses on him!!!

David and I on deck watching the sunset!!!

It was an absolute beautiful one!

Gabby, AJ, Michael and Al playing a little game of shuffle board!!  They found out they enjoyed playing it!

The sun set on a wonderful day!!!  It was a great place to go!  I am glad it is one of the stops that switched it to.  I could see going back and just relaxing there for vacation!!  We all enjoyed ourselves, but had to get to bed for our next day of adventures!