Hiking The Kotor Fortress In Montenegro

According to the brochure I was handed at the North Gate, “The formidable walls of the Kotor fortress are an excellent example of medieval fortification. They were gradually built up between the 9th and 19th centuries, to form a continuous belt around the old urban center and the sheer cliff of the Hill of St. John which stands over the town. The ring formed by the walls was completed and closed in the 13th and 14th century and after the invention of firearms, new walls were constructed in front of the old ramparts. These new walls featured an inclined escarpment and the interstice was willed with stone and soil, or ‘terrapien.’”

“The total length of the walls is around 4.5 kilometers, the breadth between 2 and 16 meters and the height varying, but reaching 20 meters in places. Visitors can enter the old city center through one of three gates: the main, or Sea Gate on the West side, which dates from 1555 – in the past it was possible to access this gate by boat; the North Gate, dating from 1540 and reached by suspension bridge over the river Skurda; and the South Gate, with three doors dating from the 13th, 17th and 18th centuries and reached by bridge over the spring Gurdic.”

Watch the video above to see me climbing to the top of the Kotor fortress… and afterwards, click here to see photos from a beautiful day in Kotor.