Report - St John's Castle - Kotor, Montenegro - October 2014

[The Amateur Wanderer]

St John's Castle

The Explore

Evening guy's, I don't usually get to explore much abroad, so when the opportunity to see former parts of Yugoslavia as part of a family holiday arose I jumped at the opportunity of fitting in a wee bit of exploration!

This was never going to be easy though, our ship arrived in the port of Kotor at 10:00am and was due to depart again at 13:00pm, this gave me exactly 3 hours to climb to the top of Mount St. John, explore the fortress ruins and get back on the boat! So I packed light, taking only my DSLR, OM1 film camera, water, phone and set off on a mad dash through town, before reaching the foot of the mountain and scrambling up onto an old mountain path... It took me 40 minutes from getting off the boat, getting through town and ascending the 280 meter's worth of winding mountain paths to reach the fort near the summit... Not bad I don't think? I then spent 20 mins at the top, before scrambling back down and having a quick look around the old town and Soviet Hydro Power Station (Didn't have time to go in though sadly ). The climb/sprint especially in the heat expected from around the Adriatic left me pretty knackered, and the rest of the day was spent in the hot tub with a few beers on the ship, wish all explores ended like that!

Anyway, I've ranted enough, history time!

History

The fortifications of Kotor (Italian: Cattaro) are an integrated historical fortification system that protected the medieval town of Kotor containing ramparts, towers, citadels, gates, bastions, forts, cisterns, a castle, and ancillary buildings and structures. They incorporate military architecture of Illyricum, Byzantium, Venice, and Austria. Together with the old town and its natural surroundings the fortifications were inscribed in the list of World Heritage Sites in 1979 labelled Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor and represent the only such site of cultural significance in Montenegro.

he top of the mountain of St.John was already fortified during Illyrian time. In the 6th century the emperor Justinian I reconstructed the fortress. With the retreat of the Byzantines, eventually and in spite of numerous incursions some independence was attained, however this had no lasting effects upon the fortifications. This changed when in 1420 the then independent Republic of Cattaro succumbed to Venetian rule. As part of Albania Veneta the fortifications received their current structure. During this time there were two successful Ottoman sieges followed by occupations, 1538 – 1571 and 1657 – 1699. In 1797 the fortifications passed to the Habsburg Monarchy with the Treaty of Campo Formio. In 1805, Kotor was assigned to the French Empire's client state, the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy by the Treaty of Pressburg, but occupied by Russian troops under Dmitry Senyavin until they left after the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. Three years later it was incorporated into the French Empire's Illyrian Provinces. The fortifications (then named Cattaro) were attacked by the British naval Captain William Hoste with his ship HMS Bacchante (38 guns). In an "unmilitary manner" he hauled his ships' cannon to positions above the fort using block and tackle and started the shelling. After a ten day siege, the French garrison had no alternative and surrendered on January 5, 1814.With the Congress of Vienna Kotor was returned to the Austrian Empire. After their defeat in World War I the Austrians left and the fortress was not longer manned. During World War II Kotor was occupied by the Axis forces and liberated on November 21, 1944 by the Soviets, a date commemorated over the Sea Gate.

Severe earthquakes that damaged the fortifications occurred in 1563, 1667, and most recently, on April 15, 1979.

Pictures

The place is worth it's weight in gold for the epic views, and structures, but don't expect any amazing internals...

Heading up the old Mountain Paths, they where in fairly good nick this low down...

The paths are becoming overgrown and a little worse for wear as we get up higher, quick breather and a shot looking back on the old town, the Mountain may not be the tallest, but the paths do take you well away from the town...

The sentry's must have been fit back in the day...

Keep going...

Loved this shot, reminded me of something you'd expect to find in South America

First of the towers to have the old Iron Doors still in Situ...

Moving on up...

Shame it's not just as easy as accepting the risk back home...

The top, finally... Now let's get inside and have a look around!

Inside, stripped bare as expected sadly.

Tunnel...

Had a look inside here, but was just a large empty room, wasn't even going to attempt to shoot inside without a tripod...

There was some awesome masonary in there, check this out...

And finally looking back down on Kotor and the ship 'Thompson Majesty' a lovely view and gives you an idea of how far I managed to travel in 40 mins!

That's all from the fort, apologies for it been so pic heavy, going to add a couple more though taken from the ship as we were leaving port. Montenegro appears to have been explored very little, which is surprising as the place seemed to be full of potential explores, had I not been tied to the ships itinerary I would have loved to have spent a few more days here exploring.

Old Soviet Shipping...

WW2 German Uboat Pens...

Fortress at the mouth of the mouth of the channel, with battle damage from the war in the late 90's...

Cheers for looking guys, and any of you guy's who explore outside of Britain often, do a bit of research and get yourselves out there, looks like so many potential explores! I would myself if I had the cash/time!

 

[Bertie Bollockbrains]

ha... I did this a few years ago in the middle of August when the temperature was about 40 degrees. You are right the climb is brutal. I dare you to return and do it in August.

Just wanting to add a little bit of a warning as I spent 2 years out in the Balkans in the 1990s on peacekeeping operations and its a place I still go back to often (for leisure these days)... not a problem in Montenegro, but certainly in Croatia and of course Bosnia, but the ground is still littered with landmines and unexploded ordnance. The landmines are made of hard plastic and cannot be detected easily by metal detector. It is unlikely in our lifetimes that they will ever be cleared. So in general the Balkans NOT a safe place to be exploring off the beaten path.

There's a fantastic abandoned hotel complex on a beach just to the south of Dubrovnik, but definitely is heavily mined. Entry could be very lethal. The Olympic Winter Games of 1984 sites are there to be seen, including the very depressing wrecked ski jump on top of a hill at Sipovo which serves as a tragic metaphor to what happened in these parts. It you want to be a warzone tourist, most of Bosnia and parts of Croatia are still heavily scarred from the conflicts with plenty of bulletholes and wrecked buildings to see, even in tourist centres such as Mostar. But seeing from a distance is probably all you can do safely.

Anyways enjoyed this report, thumbs up from me.

 

[WildBoyz]

The Amateur Wanderer and the Raiders of the Lost Ark lol. Some awesome awesome decoration in the stonework. It's frustrating when you have to squeeze something in on a limited time frame, especially when there's loads of other cool bits lying around. Good effort for risking it and getting up there

For a moment there I imagined you'd managed to set sail on the Tuexedo Royale from your last report.

 

[The Amateur Wanderer]

The Amateur Wanderer and the Raiders of the Lost Ark lol. Some awesome awesome decoration in the stonework. It's frustrating when you have to squeeze something in on a limited time frame, especially when there's loads of other cool bits lying around. Good effort for risking it and getting up there

For a moment there I imagined you'd managed to set sail on the Tuexedo Royale from your last report.

LOL!

Cheers for the comments as always mate

 

[mw0sec]

What a beautiful place. Interesting report.

 

[Bugsuperstar]

I really like this kind of thing. Thanks.

 

[Posh Tim]

Great report and photos. I live here on a yacht and anchor behind Sveti Marko, about which there is another very good report on this site. Any explorers need any info, get in touch. Tim

 

[AFPURBEX]

Hello all. First post after registering earlier.
Across the bay there is a fantastic place, the old Austro-Hungarian fortress. I will post a report from when I went in 2018.