The next morning we took off on a hike up the mountain to an old fortress. There are 1350 steps to get to the fortress and as you all may remember Katherine is none too fond of stairs. After taking several breaks for pictures (not because we were tired) we made it to the top. Most of the fortress had been destroyed but the view from the top was amazing. As I told you it is a view that you can only read about. The mountains lead right into the water! They say that "blue and green shall never be seen except in the washing machine" but I have now seen with my own eyes that it is simply not true. The contrast between the blue water and the rolling green mountains was magical. There were vendors selling drinks along the walk so I decided to buy a beer and shotgun one at the top of the mountain. We also did a few handstands and Katherine did a cartwheel because we are sometimes tacky. We then walked down 1350 stairs to the bottom of the mountain and made our way to the bus station. From there we took a quick bus to a small town called Perast, it has two famous islands that are man made. The legend is that there was a rock that was about two square meters big that stuck out of the water. One day a miracle happened and there was a picture of the Virgin Mary on the rock. The sailors started to believe that the picture was good luck so they sank old ships and dropped thousands of rocks in order to make an island around the little two square meter rock. Once the island was secure they built a church where the picture of the Virgin Mary is still on display. After a great day we spent the evening on a patio on the water.
On Tuesday we decided to take another bus to Budva which is about a 45 minute drive. The old town of Budva is beautiful. It looks as if it is built on the water. We spent a few hours exploring the old town and then made our way to some nearby cliffs. We are now self proclaimed thrill seekers so we changed into our bathing suits and jumped off the 25-30 foot cliff into the sea. The more we do it the easier it gets. I think I am going to try a double backflip or a gainer on the next one (just kidding Mom!!). Our next destination was another short bus ride away. We made our way to Sveti Stefan which is a small island that has a small strip of sandy beach leading to the island. When we got to the island we were denied access because apparently the island was bought by a hotel and only hotel guests were allowed on the island. This seemed absurd to me until I was told that it costs at least 1500 euros per night to stay on the island. Just to use their private beach it costs 75 euros! Instead we used the free public beach on the other side and then caught a bus back to Kotor.
Wednesday was a day of relaxation and planning. We were originally planning on taking a bus to Istanbul on Friday but Katherine put the wrong date on her Visa (a week later) so we have changed our plans.... Again... We have now planned our trip to Greece for a week before heading to Istanbul for a week. After finishing all of our planning we explored the old town of Kotor a little bit more and then enjoyed some ice cream before calling it a day. We can not wait for Athens but we will have to because we are taking back to back 14 hour bus rides.