Part of the charm is in just how small the place is - a whole country with the same population as Hannover. Like the rest of the Balkans, Montenegro was tossed between the Ottomans, the Venetians, the Austrians, the Serbians, just for starters. It is an Orthodox country, except for where it's Muslim or Catholic.
We were in Kotor, a town on the bay known as the southern-most fjord in Europe. I'm not entirely sure what that means, except that the water is deep and fjord is a fun word to say. Built on rocks, Kotor sinks a millimeter or two into the bay every year. It's easy to get lost in the winding alleys of this sinking city's old town.. and somehow end up right back where you started.
Brian and I saw Kotor best by going above it. First, we climbed the city walls (the side where you're not supposed to go) up to the old fortress. Then the hike began by climbing through one of the castle windows.
Just that phrase reminded me - this was a moment when I was as close to a fairy tale as I might ever get.
Beyond the window were some goats and a rocky switchback trail heading up and up. Montenegro is a small country only in the horizontal sense. We hiked up and up until the clouds were almost upon us. Near the top, we came across another hiker. He was from Idaho, and had been sailing around the Adriatic with friends who own a yacht (we all should have those kind of friends). A few minutes later we were discussing places he'd been in Israel and American checks and balances several thousand feet about sea level. We were even pretty far above goat level. The Idaho hiker turned around so he could make it back to the yacht and we pressed on.
The hike was supposed to lead us to an old Austro-Hungarian fort. We never quite found it, and gave up as the fog settled in on top of us. Heading back on shaky legs, we climbed back through the castle window and downhill into town.
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