Viking: Empires of the Mediterranean Cruise
(The Adriatic Sea), July 21-31, 2024

Our early morning arrival was well worth getting up to watch. Follow the path from the sea into the Bay of Kotor, then North through the tiny passage to the inner bay, then turn right to the city of Kotor. Our ship was small by cruise ship standards, but still large for the narrow passages.

The mountains coming right up to the shore suggest that the water here is very deep.

Even the wider parts are not very wide.

Building along the coast line does not extend very far up the steep hills.

We will be sharing the harbor with Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas. It can carry 3,602 passengers, compared to 950 on our ship. Since they are four times as large as us, we got to park at the dock, but their passengers had to ferry in on tender boats.

Finally we arrived at Kotor - not a huge city

but it had a dock sufficient to handle our ship, adjacent to town. Note the city wall just ahead of the dock.

Every place we looked there seemed to be another church.

and another

We did not venture to this church up the hill. Kotor is a walled city, with the wall still clearly visible in this picture, surrounding old town. We stayed inside the old town wall, and in the more level part saw plenty!

This building was once Beskuca Palace, but now is just a retail store.

St Tryphon's Roman Catholic Cathedral... almost 1,000 years old.

St. Luke's Orthodox church. The panels in the floor are grave covers. The lady in black is just another tourist.

Only one fresco on the south wall of this church in Kotor has been preserved, on which (in the middle) there is St. Sylvester of Rome, a saint from the fourth century, who, according to tradition, baptized the Byzantine Emperor Constantine, whom we celebrate to this day. Unlike the previous picture, this lady in black, Jenny, is intentionally part of the picture.

Another very pretty orthodox church. The altar is behind the doors only open during the liturgy. There are no statues, but rather icons (pictures).

This was a chapel at a catholic convent. A native at the cathedral promised that there would be a mass at 6 pm but when we arrived the cathedral was totally closed. I remembered seeing that there would be a mass at the convent at 7 pm, so we found it and attended, with two nuns and about 8-10 tourists.

Our ship, the Viking Sea, really filled the small dock.

Some cute life-size dolls in town. ForzaHotels mentioned on the sign is a chain of ... two hotels.

Back on board for another amazing dinner... This is the menu of the day, with the option to order a complete dinner tailored to the area (Destination Menu), or your choice of anything.

This is the seldom changing menu of things you can always get if you don't find something you like on the menu of the day. Viking feeds you VERY well. The sommelier's recommendation upgrades are optional - the house wine is excellent and no charge.