Day 3--Where is Montenegro/What is Montenegro??

Glad you asked.....A wee bit more history.  With Tito gone, the Homeland War commenced in the 90's.  Ultimately Yugoslavia was divided into six countries.  (I don't expect you to understand or follow this, I couldn't, but it does show you the the extreme diversity of this part of the world that only a Dictator could manage...sound familiar??)  

Croatia (mostly Catholic Croats), Slovenia, (mostly Catholic Slovenes), Serbia, (mostly Orthodox Serbs, Bosnia-Herzegovina, (the most diverse--mostly Muslim Bosniacs, but with very large Croat and Serb population), Macedonia, (with 25 percent Muslim Albanians and 75 percent Orthodox Macedonians, AND Montenegro, where we are today (with mostly Orthodox--sort of a Serb/Croat hybrid)!

Now a map!

With that background, we drove from Dubrovnik, at the bottom part of Croatia through a slow border crossing to Kotor, somewhere on the southern coast of Montenegro.  On the way, though, we saw the Verige Strait.  A very strategic point throughout history for this strait is only 1000 meters wide!  

Over the centuries, starting around 300BC all sorts of protection and taxation took place, from shipwrecking mechanisms to chains to cannons, the definition of a 'bottle neck'.

On to Kotor.  A nice town where we find our Airbnb.  It is a one bedroom apartment on the fourth floor!  No elevators, good exercise taking our luggage up for just one night. We heard about walking the town wall, similar, we thought, to the town wall of Dubrovnik, (flat).  Not the case, this wall went straight up the mountain surrounding the walled city.  700 feet, 1000 steps.  More like a skinny Great Wall of China!

Kotor surrounds the sound.  We are on the right, you can see where the cruise ship 
was docked on the right.  The city wall was on the right as well.

Now the churches are Orthodox, lots of icons, no Jesus or Mary

Artists..............