Kotors City Walls only 1350 Steps to the Top, Kotor, Montenegro

Kotor’s City Walls - only 1350 steps to the fort that overlooks the Bay of Koto r. Sounded easy! On arrival into Kotor Montenegro by bus a few days prior, the imposing wall, church and fort towered over the city and the Bay of Kotor. We knew that we would climb it, 1200 metres and 1350 steps would not deter us.

Maybe the crowds would, but if we started when the gate opened at 8 am in the morning, hopefully, we would beat them and also beat the high temperatures at that time of the year. You don’t need to hire a local Kotor guide to climb to the top.

Montenegro was always on our mind to visit but when Lonely Planet announced that Montenegro was one of its top destinations in 2016 we just had to visit it.

Montenegro is part of the Balkans and is one of the oldest European states. Montenegro has over 290km of coastline and is classified as part of southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Montenegro borders the countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Albania and the Adriatic Sea.

Starting at the North Gate in Kotor Old Town (which dates from 1540) at 8.15 am we paid our entrance fee of 3 euros per person and started the long ascent. It is always wise not to count the steps, I tend to do that, but chatting and stopping for the many photographic opportunities took my mind off it. Anyway, it was 520 steps to the small church on the hill of St John - Our Lady of the Health. (no I did not count them, promotional material gave me the information) ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).