Boka festival in Kotor

 

Looking over the Bay of Kotor

Good morning from Kotor, Montenegro!  I'm a bit late posting this but we had a late night last night.  Yesterday, we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to our mountain cabin in Zabljak and headed south toward Kotor.  

As with all of our drives in Montenegro so far, it was incredibly scenic with dramatic mountain vistas and switchbacked, twisty roads.

One thing we have been noticing about Montenegro (at least the northern part) is that there are apiaries and people selling honey EVERYWHERE.  After we drove through the town of Niksic yesterday, we noticed a couple of spectacularly scenic roadside stands, so we pulled over to check one of them out.  While I'm sure we paid a premium because of the location and clear tourist appeal, the man who ran the stand had an amazing selection of honey with honeycomb, preserved fruits, various types of brandy and homemade wine.  We picked up a few things to bring home, soaked in the view for a few minutes, and then continued to make our way to Kotor.

The views coming into the Bay of Kotor were incredible, so we pulled over again to take it in and snap a few photos (and even caught a glimpse of an 'influencer in the wild' posing for photos with a desk and laptop on the cliffside view point, lol).

Since Kotor has gotten quite popular, the town is notorious for traffic jams lasting from basically June until September - it's easy to see why too - the mountains basically drop dramatically into the Bay, there there is just one windy, narrow road that ALL traffic coming in and out must go on, running through all the little towns.  It actually wasn't as bad as I anticipated, and we even were able to find parking relatively quickly.

Funny thing...this seems to happen to us a lot, where we think we've planned things out well and done our homework on each destination....only to find out that we've missed a big local event or festival (happened in the Azores and last year as well in Cochem).  Well, it turns out that August 24 was the big Boka festival in Kotor - for this festival, there are decorated, lit-up boats that tour the harbour at night, followed by fireworks, and then an all-night party, drawing thousands of people to the town (even more than usual). More on this later.

We were a bit early to check into our Airbnb so I quickly checked restaurants on google, and there was a super highly rated one close by called Restobar Taraca, so we popped in for lunch. Now, I will preface this by saying that I did NOT come all the way to the Balkans to get burgers...but...after a week of typical Montenegrin mountain fare....a burger sounded pretty tasty. We all got burgers, and much to our amusement, they brought out black gloves for us, citing the sauciness of the burgers.  This made us all laugh.  But the burgers certainly lived up to their saucy promise (honestly....they were SO GOOD) - Zoe embraced the gloves, while the rest of us eventually ended up in a knife/fork situation.  We all got a good laugh and a great meal.

So so so yummy

Saucy burgers 🤣

Our Airbnb is right inside the north gates of the old city of Kotor (car-free zone), so in no time, we were checked in and exploring a bit.  The apartment is on top of one gelateria and across from two others, so the kids were immediately stoked and also counting up their euros to calculate how many times they'd be able to enjoy gelato.  Rosie also immediately fell in love with the cats....there is a cat sanctuary literally around the corner from where we are staying and it draws Rosie like amagnet - she is just loving all the cute little cats (and they are everywhere here).  I'm already hearing pleas for kittens.

Rosie always stopping to pet the cats.

Can you spot Zoe and I?

Since today is Sunday and the stores would be closed, Rosie and Brad headed out to a local supermarket to pick up a few essentials (we don't ever really eat out for breakfast on trips, and we like to keep stocked with snacks, coffee, wine and drinks). They also reported back that every square in the town was set up for live music and dancing.  The girls were already pretty stoked about the festivities.

We had dinner at a restaurant called 'Restaurant City,' which had a super pretty patio (I mean, everything here is pretty.....it's SO picturesque and quaint), and nice jazz live music.  Brad and I enjoyed seafood platters (and he even broke out a couple of the extra gloves earlier once the shrimp proved harder than usual to peel).  

I know I'm supposed to acknowledge that shrimp cooked with shells and heads are more flavourful....but I'm not sure it's worth the mess and annoyance

The food was good and once we finished, we headed to the port to catch a glimpse of the boat procession.

It was a bit hard to see, but Rosie and I eventually made our way to the front to see the boats - I definitely get the sense that there is a lot of satire and local politics/jokes that go into these boat floats - I obviously didn't understand that but we did get the sense of fun and creativity and humour that went into it.  Once the winners of the boat procession were announced, it was time for fireworks!  Always fun and Rosie loved them.

Brad and Zoe, in the meantime, managed to snag a table in one of the larger squares of the old town, right near the techno DJ.  Rosie and I eventually joined them (big crowds and only a few gates to get back into the city so it took a while for us to make our way there) and we all grooved to the music under the towers of St Tryphon's cathedral.  After the DJ set, a live band came out (they even had an awesome trumpet player).  We ended up dancing and partying until 1:30 in the morning (which might explain why it's now 10:30 and Zoe is still sleeping - hahaha).  The kids loved it - it was a really fun vibe and a fun night, right up there with 'accidental wein fest' in Cochem last year.

I think school dances might seem a bit lame after pyrotechnics in the shadow of a medieval cathedral

Ice tea and Aperol spritz!

Plans for today are still pretty flexible - a little more exploring the town and maybe we'll even find a little beach somewhere, or potentially climbing up to the fortress if the heat doesn't prove too intense. And of course Zoe will need to wake up at some point.