A day off is not always a day off …

A lovely morning and after a banana and orange juice we decided to hike up to the Kotor Fortress. The days are starting to get significantly shorter with sunrise as late as 6.42am and the mountain that looms above hiding the sun for even longer today.

As we start our climb the church bells peel endlessly, letting everyone in the town know it is 8am.

A quick look at the port as we climb, the ship yesterday has gone and now a new ship ‘Wind Surf’ 404 passengers has docked. John is back in Fremantle … haha.

The steep rocky steps are not designed for people with short legs, it’s a combination of steps and getting a good hamstring stretch and the no step option. I mainly took the latter.

John said he was not counting, we had read there were 1350 steps. If they were normal sized steps it would have been way more, and 260m above sea level.

There were a few early risers also climbing. The views were spectacular of the bay and mountains surrounding.

About 35 minutes later we are at the Fortress, not to mention the wow factor of the climb, the views and how and when they built this and the walls that we have zigzagedly followed.

The way down was significantly faster … time for a coffee and a croissant in one of the many hidden cafes in the old town. Our entertainment is the cats of course as they wander through the streets … cats rule in Kotor.

We venture out on our bikes around a 42km circuit of the bay. The road hugs the coast in what I call a bow shape. It’s pleasant riding, not too much traffic then a quick 1min ferry ride. I ask at the ticket office, ‘2 adults and 2 bikes, please’ the reply was, ‘It’s free, go go!!’ Well you could have knocked me over by a feather!

Another 12km which I think was the nicest part of the circuit. We stopped at a bakery and sat on the coast with lunch, beer and dessert watching a yacht doing circles and trying to throw the ropes to dock … but very unsuccessfully. The mountains are just mesmerising on the other side of the coast which is quite mistakenly like a lake. Oops, here comes another ship … ‘Armonia’ 2360 passengers … off we go 6km to watch it berth only to find that it is too big for the port so it is anchored out and passengers are bought ashore by tender boats. It’s all very exciting today.