2025 Sept. 23; Kotor, Montenegro.

Today we are in Kotor, Montenegro which is located at the end of a fjord.  From the pilot station, where we arrived at 08.00 it is a 2 hour sailing time to the dock. And it is a very scenic route so we had breakfast on the balcony and watched Montenegro float by.

The fjord has one narrow part where you have a nice view at the local villages. Fully in line with local tradition they built on this very scenic spot a church. I suppose it is a way to stop people arguing who has to right to build a house there. This little place is called Kamenari and provides a ferry service to the other side of the fjord.

The ship had made a lot of noise about the fact that this country is not (yet) in the European Union and thus everybody was warned multiple times that the global roaming on their phones might not work and that one could incur considerable costs. For the North Americans who had packages for Europe, they had to find out if their “Europe” package was the whole of Europe or only for the countries included in the European Union. I never have worries here as my Lord and Master can quote each England package and tariff out there by heart and I am reminded every day whether my phone package works, does not work or where it is subject to expensive tariffs.

For the large ships (Mein Schiff carries about 3000 guests) it is a long tender distance. The area of houses you can see in the photo is the modern part of Kotor where most people live and which has the larger bars, restaurants and shops. The Mein Schiff tender is the brown box at the dock.

There was another ship in port, the Mein Schiff 6, belonging to the German Operator Tui but as she was much too big to dock, she had to anchor quite far out and ran a 6 tender service to the pier where we were docked. Big tender as well, with two big entry doors, so the 300 person capacity could embark or disembark very fast. The pier can handle ships up to about 220 meters length and that normally means nothing over 60.000 tons or 1400 pax. Thus for these little ports it makes sense to come in with a smaller ship. It did not deter the Germans from marching ashore in large numbers and the small old town was full to capacity with 3000 of them, tourists coming for a day tour or staying in Montenegro and about 600 of us.

Old Kotor is a walled city with a moat at the sea side and snuggled against the mountain at the other side. A number of years ago the City decided (see the blue canopy to the left) to put in a under ground crossing  with escalators for tourists to get to the old town. There were too many car accidents. The Kotorians are very friendly people but once they drive a car , there is a certain disrespect for the rest of the world that also might be using the road. And of course there is always a number of pedestrians who just cross the street with paying attention to any traffic at all. Together a potential mix to keep the emergency services busy. Now accidents have been reduced to tourists falling down the escalator.

The old town has been completely taken over by souvenir shops, small restaurants and the upper floors of the houses are now all apartments for rent. I did not see many locals living there but they must be making a lot of money from the apartments and shop rents. We just went for a walk, bought another soup spoon and avoided the more expensive goods. There were a lot less jewerly shops than in the other ports but they had been replaced by leather shops. Also ceramics were more prominent. All in all better quality than we have seen before. But the nicer ceramics were the large hand painted plates and how do you get them home ?The problem is that with the United Kingdom out of the European Union, the postal charges are quite considerable. The Ottoman (turks) were in the area for a long time and this considerably influenced the merchandise in the shops as well. Hence the leather, ceramics but also very nice turkish lamps. Which look a bit like Tiffany lamps but are much more detailed.

The wall or ramparts as they are called locally, leading to the top of the protecting mountain San Giovanni. Above the top of the photo on the rim of the moutain is another fortress, serving as a look-out and early defense against intruders.

Most of the old town defences and buildings are from the Venetians days when the City State of Venice controlled much of the Mediteranean and established a very large trading network. They built or improved the city walls and also the ramparts going all the way up the montain. If you want to walk them it is 1350 steps to the top. Maybe ok in the winter but not on a summers day like this.

Kotor Square with Bell Tower. I had to wait a considerable time before the square was somewhat cleared for a photo as it was a very touristy day,

Because the city is walled, you always end back up in the middle of the town which has an open square, overlooked by the Clock tower of the 15th. century. It still rings the hours. More to the back is the Tryphon Cathedral (yes yet again another cathedral with a bishop) that is even older. After looking at so much culture it was time to go back on board. We decided to skip lunch as we had a heavy evening coming, “white night”.  This is a signature event of Azamara and we had heard good reports about it and if the buffet was comparable to the Balkan Buffet of a few days ago, we would have nothing to complain about. It runs for  the whole evening and the ships crew sets up tables and chairs around the pool, on pool level and deck 10 above  (running track). Everybody is encouraged to dress up in white. About 90% of the guests were completely  in white and the rest in a variation of white. A few guests had not gotten the memo and showed up in other colors. Here crowd control set in, with “Negative Vibes” and they quickly left the scene to go to the dining room)

Table set-up. Those who are “in the know” arrived early to beat the quickly forming line for the food,

18.15 White Night warm up with DJ Symz (barbed wire techno music)

18.30 Buffet opens  (Guests start to line up)

19.00 Get the party started with SensAsia (4 piece band with singer)

20.00 Special Event Crew Waves (crew parade)20.15 Azamara Presents…. The White Night party (Cruise Director, full cast and showband)

21.45 White night After party with SensAsia

10.45 White Night After Party with D.J Symz.

We were dressed accordingly and I was one of the very few gents who wore white shoes (courtesy of my sailing days and in normal life hard to buy)  and it was a great party. The setup was perfect with the SensAsia band providing entertainment during dinner. Then most of the crew marched in, waving flags to say thank you (for paying their salaries) accompanied by some wise words of the captain. Then it was dancing time and the band & performers & C.D sang and danced for 90 minutes straight. The dance floor was full and each castmember and also the C.D could showcase their individual talents. Compared to this, Holland America’s Orange party, is a VERY poor relation. This how a deck party should be ran and the entertainers clearly loved it as they could show off their talents. And most entertainers are at their best when they are not hemmed in by corporate restraints.  So they went for it here, while making sure that the music remained dance music and the crowd could hop, swing and disco.  This was very good………… very very good.

The buffet being prepared. Similar to the “Balkan night” but with more variations in meat and a spaghetti station.

The line up for the buffet.

The crew is coming out, everybody waves their napkins.

The crew assembly and flags at the ready.

With drinks included it is not so difficult to get a conga line going.

The ship sailed at 22.00 and it was a very scenic sail-a-way though the fjord with the lights of the small vilages on the mountains twinkling at either side.  Tomorrow we are in Dubrovnik and we were supposed to drop anchor under the walls of the old town. However the weather, with rain storms and wind gusts, is not looking that great so the captain wisely decided to dock at Gruz which is the commercial port at the other side of Dubrovnik. The ship will lay on a shuttle bus service to the entrance of the old town but now from the land side. Weather for tomorrow: partly cloudy with rain and thunder storms expected later in the day. Tl 25oC / 75oF.

As can be clearly seen from this photo, sea air does shrink a men’s T-shir.t