Kotor

A place I'd never heard of before, though I knew there was a Montenegro somewhere. It has a coat of arms.

Like Dubrovnic, it's a small, totally walled, coastal town between the Ionian sea and mountains, of only 20,000 people in the centre area and 200,000 altogether. So our boat made it 21,000!  It's very similar to Dubrovnic in many ways.

It's also clean and tidy, like Rhodes. The walls are intact and there are four entrances, many narrow winding streets and marbled surfaces and very few cars.

We had lemonade and a brownie in a very nice small modern cafe, with a decorated ceiling.

I also suspected that it had a complicated history, so it was good to have a local guide who spoke well and made it logical. Settled from Neolithic times it became first part of the Byzantine empire from Constantinople. It was evangelised by  Trufan who was eventually martyred. He was 'sainted' after his image was seen just before a massive attack by the Ottomans and a storm arose very suddenly and destroyed all the Ottoman ships.

It became subject to attacks by the Muslim Ottoman Empire on many occasions.

The place seems to have been ruled by wealthy trading families who had Palaces, much like Dubrovnic.

They built walls and reinforced defences during the 17th and 18th C's.

Then came the world wars and occupation by Italians and Germans  and then Yugoslavian communism under Tito. The guide said that the country prospered under communism and had free education and welfare of high standards and new industries came in,  but the governance was brutal to people who expressed any dissatisfaction and this made the communists unpopular.The wealthy families were dispossesed of course and their family lines remain, but with only token status.

Tito held it all together until he died then anarchy broke out and there were earthquakes in 1979 and Covid of course.The town was repaired and the Cathedral restored, including the huge original preChristian Hellenic Greek columns that had fallen but not broken

The German government then gave a lot of aid to Montenegro and helped it stay together and rescued it's economy, without a lot of demands for repayment.

Kotor city has also been saved by being declared a protected world heritage site by UNESCO.

More recently it has applied to join the EU and is already in NATO. The country is largely Catholic but all faiths respected. The Montenegro language of about 30 letters is revived and tourism is a a big help to the economy. However the cruise ships are too big and some restrictions are being enacted.

Today, 5000 Germans poured in from  from another cruise ship, while we were there,  bringing the central population to 26,000! It was Kotor that was aided by the German govt after the GFC struck and were very generous without demanding reciprocity, except maybe tourists??

We upped and left quick smart...................