Day 63 & 64 - A Sea Day and a "See" Day!

March 13-14, 2022

48 degrees as we cut slow circles in the Adriatic on the 13th.
32 degrees as the DH and I shivered on our veranda to watch the spectacular sail in to Kotor, Montenegro this morning on the 14th!

"I want to explain you..." ~ Eva, our clever & knowledgeable guide in Kotor.  
(Good luck, Eva. The DH has been trying to explain me for 45 years!)

March 13th ~ On our sea day, there were two things I really enjoyed. One was the new photography lecturer's talk about how to take better travel pictures. He really gave us some specific things to think about when I look through my phone to snap up an experience. Hopefully, you'll see a difference in the images I share here.

The other highlight of my day was our interdenominational church service at 6 PM in Torshavn nightclub. The DH preached and he always has something wonderful and deep to share about God's love. Enrico, the pianist with the Viking band, accompanied us on the hymns and when we learned that the person who was supposed to sing for special music wasn't going to be able to do it, I asked Enrico if he knew any Bach preludes. Well, of course he did. So instead of a vocalist for special music, I shared how JS Bach dedicated every scrap of music he ever wrote "to the glory of God," and we were all blessed by Enrico's deeply musical and spiritually profound playing of Bach's Prelude in C. It was like a prayer floating up to God from the keyboard. 

March 14th ~ We set our alarm for 5:45 AM so we'd be up to view the sail in. We bundled up against the cold, and it was brutal, but even freezing temperatures couldn't keep us from the wonders of Boca Bay.

The church to the left, Our Lady of the Rocks, is dedicated to an icon of the Virgin & Holy Child. We visited it later on our excursions. The island on the right serves as the graveyard for Kotor. (I was playing with the reflections in this photo. The amber in the water is from the heights of the mountains in the background that were just beginning to be lit by the rising sun while the bay was still in shadow.)

This is an unretouched image. The light & the ripples in the water produced these surreal patterns. 

In 2018, we called at Kotor and decided to explore the Old Town independently. We didn't have a map. We didn't have a guide, so we followed a black cat who seemed to know its business and the feline led us to every landmark we'd hoped to find. It was a whimsical day.

Today we took an organized tour and I have to admit Eva, our guide, brought a lot more to the experience than the cat! 
 

Between the mismatched towers of of 12th century St. Tryphan's, there is yet another church about half way up the steep mountains. The saint is credited with keeping them safe from the Black Death, but I suspect the large numbers of stray cats roaming at will kept down the flea population and hence, the method of transfer of the plague. If God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah, who says He can't use cats?

Remnants of the defensive walls, built by the Venetians in the 1400's, snake their way up to the summit and beyond. After the Great Wall of China and the Walls of Stone, Croatia, these are the third most extensive system of walls in the world. Of course, our guide Eva said threats were more likely to come from the sea than over the mountains, but the walls gave defenders places to retreat to.   

Note the winged lion of Venice over the door

After a leisurely walking tour of the Old Town, hitting all the same places we'd seen in 2018, but with more color commentary. There are both Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in the town but religious tolerance is the norm.  

We boarded a coach and drove along the shore road to a little village called Perast. If most of the buildings are Romanesque in Kotor, they are Baroque in Perast, with much embellishment and many balconies. 

From Perest, we embarked on a small craft and visited the man-made island in the bay. According to Eva, the icon of the Madonna & Child washed up on a rock in the bay. The townspeople fished it out and installed it in one of the churches in Kotor, but the next morning, it was back out on the rock. This reportedly happened several times until the people decided the icon wanted to stay on the rock.

So the people began sending out flotillas of boats filled with stones which were dropped into the bay until they created a stable man-made base for the church they built to house the icon. It became a favorite church for sailors and fishermen, who brought gifts of silver to the sanctuary. Someone in our group asked Eva if there was some serious security system in the church because there was a fortune on the walls.

"No," Eva said. "It would kill a Montenegrin to steal from a church."  

A secluded graveyard. This peaceful place speaks of rest and hope.

Here's the DH's montage from today: 

And just for grins, here are some of our photos from our 2018 visit. 

We're in Split, Croatia tomorrow. More soon...