Kotor Walls

An Anita Adventure today energetic, fun and slightly subversive, climbing to the top of the ancient defensive walls of Kotor. These were constructed over a long period, starting in the 6th century, to prevent the town being overrun from behind.  If you start from the town the official walk consists of around 1,350 steps taking you up to 1,200m from sea level. There is a fee of about 8 Euro. However, Anita discovered that there might be another clandestine way in by taking a footpath up the back and then cutting across the steep slope to the base of the wall.

We caught an early bus from Buda and set off behind the town where a gorge cut into a rocky cliff. A small, well-trodden path zig-zagged back and forth through groves of wild pomegranate. We saw these were being collected with a tree hook, by local people, who peeled them in situ, leaving the husks in piles. Far out on the rocks were a herd of goats being precariously followed by a shepherd. Despite it being November there were still quite a few wild flowers in bloom, adding interest to the wayside, and because of the rain the night before we came across some beautifully marked giant land snails slurping out of their dark crevasse hideaways.
After we had gone up quite a distance we seemed to be veering away from the walls so we decided to cut across the back of some old terraced fields, thick with damp grass and hidden stones until eventually we came out to where a tiny ruined chapel. It crouched under an enormous pencil cypress tree, whose roots were in process of giving it a slow, slow hug. Inside there were the faded  remains of old frescos and outside a family of black redstarts flirted in the fig trees. The walls were closer now, looming up above us. A tiny sheep track looked to be winding its way up to the base, although we could not pick out an access point yet.
 ‘It says that there is a sort of recess built into the wall with a ladder up to it’, said Anita, reading from her phone. At that moment we saw it, just as described, a stone hole in the wall, well above our stretch height. Against the wall below was a makeshift ladder, knocked together out of pallet wood. It looked rickety but quite recent, so we supposed the Wall authorities came and removed it every now and again.

As we climbed up it – with care- the heavens opened, and we wriggled damp and breathless into the open-ended recess. It spanned the width of the wall with a view over the rain-lashed mountain behind one way and over the hail-pummelled Bay of Kotor the other. Very spectacular, with a dry grandstand view!
The storm passed over as quickly as it had arrived and we emerged, like the snails, from our crevasse and started up the remainder of the steps to the Keep at the top. Certainly, as well as the views, it was a stupendous feat of complex engineering, dressed stones set into on rocky outcrops in a huge inverted V behind the tiny town far below.

Arriving back in Kotor town as evening closed in we found out what the wild pomegranates were used for at a stall in the covered market, managed by Sandra – pomegranate wine and moonshine, brewed by her grandfather up in the hills. That, and wedges of the goat and sheep cheeses made by grandma set us well up for the bus ride back to the hotel.
(Interestingly the wall was first breached in a siege against the French by an English Sea-Captain in the November/December of 1813. In an ‘unmilitary manner’ he hauled cannon up by block and tackle 3000 feet, above and behind the wall and then, starting on Christmas day, (the Bounder!)  bombarded it whilst his ships shot at the town below. The French surrendered on Jan 5th. )