25 September 2018

It is not possible to visit Kotor (Cattaro in Italian) without noticing its enormous population of cats. Being a cat lover I felt they deserved a blog post dedicated to them.

Legend has it that the town’s cats are the descendants of ships cats from the many merchant ships that called into the port. Whatever the truth, they have become a symbol of the town and are everywhere.

Kotor’s sun warmed marble tile streets seemed to have a very soporific effect and there was feline competition for the café chairs at Hotel Astoria.

Even Stefan, who is definitely more of a dog person, couldn’t help but be charmed by the tiny kittens who congregate in Blessed Ozane Square.

This was not, however, going to extend to visiting the Cat Museum but I was glad to find the Sissies enthusiastic companions on a visit to this eccentric collection of cat worship.

There were some brilliant crazy cat lady postcards.

There were cat stamps, examples of cats in art and yet more cat postcards.

This was my patriotic favourite.

The cats did not confine themselves to the Old Town walls. These cuties kept me company on my solo hike up to St John’s Fort high above.

There is no shortage of cat related souvenirs in Kotor

and so when we spent my birthday in Kotor, Stefan could not resist buying me a new ship’s cat to add to my collection. Meet Monte, the Montenegrin cat. Olive, my Cretan cat, is looking just a bit miffed to have competition on board.

Finally and in the interests of balance, and for our dog preferring readers, here is one of the significantly smaller but also very visible population of canines!