If you\u2019ve never heard of Kotor, the city where we\u2019re docked, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised at that, either.\u00a0\u00a0If you collected stamps when I did as a youth, though, you might have some Italian occupation stamps from 1941-1943 overprinted Kotor.\u00a0\u00a0I probably did, but I had no idea where it was. It\u2019s a town at the head of Kotor Bay, (voted one of the most picturesque bays in the Skip ahead\u00a0\u00a0several centuries and Kotor has a heritage rather resembling many of the other ports we\u2019ve visited, though it is closer to the border of East and West.\u00a0\u00a0It was included in the Eastern Empire after Diocletian split the Empire.\u00a0\u00a0It was then part of the Byzantine Empire (accounting for the Cyrillic alphabet and the Orthodox Churches); as that empire lost control of the Balkans, it became part of various Slavic empires, and for a brief time was an independent republic, thriving on a large merchant fleet, an even larger trade with the interior of the Balkans, and an impregnable location that resisted invasion by sea; the bay narrows to several hundred meters, which was defended by a chain drawn across the bay.\u00a0\u00a0For a while, piracy was an important revenue producer (and there\u2019s an interesting document in the maritime museum in which Kotor and the equally pirate based town of Omis, near Split, agreed not to attack each other\u2019s ships; that was in 1167.\u00a0\u00a0Honor among thieves?).\u00a0\u00a0Like many other towns facing the Turks, Kotor appealed to Venice for protection; because it was wealthy (the Well, you know now where Montenegro is, and have heard of Kotor\u2014even if you don\u2019t collect stamps!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2013\/08\/DSC00442.jpg\")
<\/a>world) with a history dating at least back to the Romans.\u00a0\u00a0I went to one of the villages on the bay today, which had a Roman mosaic which has the only known depiction of Hypnos, the Roman god of sleep.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a>Venetians calculated the cost benefits of helping others!), the Venetians complied, and Kotor was part of the Venetian Republic until Napoleon ended that.\u00a0\u00a0After the Congress of Vienna, Kotor became part of the Austrian empire.\u00a0\u00a0And eventually, part of Montenegro.<\/p>\n<\/a>If Montenegro is going to offer Kotor as a tourist attraction, its main feature is a well-preserved city, surrounded by an even more well-preserved wall, that at 4.5 kilometers is almost twice the size of Dubrovnik\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Less hammered by the earthquake of 1667, Kotor can be touted by guides as being older than Dubrovnik.\u00a0\u00a0Part of the length, though, comes from the fact that the wall extends 230 meters up the hill behind the city to the fort of St. John\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/a>Inside the old city, whose gate dates from 1555 (with some additions\u2014a quote from Tito, and the date when the partisans liberated the city from the Germans), who<\/a> replaced the Italian army in 1943, the youngest church dates from 1906\u2014it\u2019s over 100 years old, and the main Cathedral <\/a> was built in the 12th<\/sup>\u00a0century.\u00a0\u00a0The houses, or rather palaces, were single family residences, with 116 coats of arms of nobles in the local museum.\u00a0\u00a0One of the most<\/a> elaborate is the Draco palace\u2014the Dragon house, with its curved windows ala Venice.<\/p>\n