So in one of his more questionable moves, Brett asked me (me=Becca) to write up one of the posts about our trip. This is questionable because he’s painfully familiar with my sense of humor, which mostly consists of atrociously corny dad jokes that don’t make anyone laugh but me. So if you hate this post, it’s his fault, not mine.

Anyway, we had one full day in Kotor, and it was awesome. We slept in and had breakfast on the balcony, which had an incredible view of the bay, mountains, and the old city walls, which arched up the mountain like a stony medieval rainbow. Today it was our mission to conquer those very walls.

The Rainbow

Unlike the city walls in Dubrovnik, which cost $20, were packed, and required nothing more than strolling, these walls were about $5, had totally manageable numbers, and judging by how much I sweat, were a pretty legit hike. The hike was incredible. You could see the city and bay the entire time, and go into all these crumbly old pieces of tower that were covered with ivy and, I thought, looked like parts of an abandoned fairy tale castle. A lot of other people though thought they looked like bathrooms though, because a bunch of them smelled like piss urine [this is a family blog- ed.], but that’s okay.

We brought a picnic lunch, and ate it on the ledge of one of the old windows. Which means we ate lunch IN the wall! It was so cool. Our spot overlooked the other side of the mountain, and we could see all these goats and a cow and a mule just munching their grass or doing whatever they were doing in the sunshine. Maybe they were really trading stocks with Japan; we were a little too far to tell.

Lunch of champions. And cheapskates.

At the top of fortifications was St. John’s Fortress, which was more crumbly beauty. We explored that for a bit, and then began to make our way down. But to keep things interesting, we decided to see where this one overgrown path would take us. Turns out it takes you to where no man has ever gone before. Well, maybe a man in like 1497, because there were steps here and there, but definitely no man since then. So basically it was walking through a thorn forest, on no visible path, with a lot of shimmying along (and on top of!) the walls. It’s already a few days later and my legs are still totally cut up, which I think would make me look like a total badass except a) they’re totally gross and scabby and b) there’s no way anyone could ever mistake me for being a badass. Anyway, our off-trailing was awesome, mainly because we didn’t die, and we eventually found our way back down.

After that, we grabbed a beer, took a quick swim in the bay, and then picked up some stuff to cook dinner, which we ate under the stars on our balcony while looking at the walls, which are lit up at night. All in all, it was a total five-star day.