After the Boka Marathon: The Kotor Walls

The Route: Kotor Old Town → the north gate → St John's Fortress → back down Logistics: On foot from the finish. Around 4.5 km of walls with roughly 1,350 steps, climbing to 260 m above the town. Entry is around €8. Allow two hours. Marathon Month: December Duration: A morning, the day after the race

Kotor Old Town (finish) ──> wall gate ──(≈1,350 steps)──> Church of Our Lady of Remedy
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                                                          St John's Fortress (260 m)

The marathon finishes inside the old town, and the walls start from it. They run from the waterfront up the face of the Lovćen foothills to St John's Fortress, a fortified line the Venetians extended over three centuries to close off the only approach to the town from above. From the top you can see the full length of the inner bay, the mountains closing it in, and the channel out towards the Adriatic.

Leave this until the day after. It is around 1,350 steps of uneven, worn limestone, and the descent is harder on quadriceps that ran 42 km than the climb is. Doing it on marathon afternoon is a way to lose the rest of the week.

The climb

Two gates give access, one behind the old town near the North Gate and one from the square by St Mary's. There is a ticket booth at each. The steps are original, which means they are irregular in height, polished in places, and without a handrail for long sections.

About two thirds of the way up, the Church of Our Lady of Remedy sits on a shelf in the hillside, a small sixteenth-century building that is the standard place to stop and let the legs settle. Most people who turn back turn back here, and the view from it is already most of what you came for.

The fortress itself is the last stretch, and the walls open out at the top onto the platform and the flag.

In wet conditions, do not

This matters more in December than at any other time of year. The limestone is smooth and it becomes genuinely slippery in rain, and the exposed sections have long drops with low parapets. The route is open in all weathers and nobody will stop you. If it has rained that morning, walk the old town instead and come back another year.

The old town below

Inside the walls, Kotor is a few hectares of squares connected by lanes too narrow for cars, with the Cathedral of St Tryphon, consecrated in 1166, as the largest thing in it. The Maritime Museum in the Grgurina Palace covers the bay's shipping history, which is the local story. In December the town is quiet and a good number of places close for the winter, so the cathedral, the museum and the walls are what you can rely on being open.

The cats are a genuine institution here and there is a small museum dedicated to them, which takes about ten minutes and is worth those ten minutes.

Where to Stay and Eat

Where to stay: Staying inside the walls puts you a few minutes from the race finish and the wall gates. Apartments in the old town are plentiful and cheap in December. Dobrota, along the bay to the north, is quieter and a flat fifteen-minute walk in.

Where to eat: The squares inside the old town have the restaurants, and in winter a smaller number of them are open. Black risotto and fresh fish from the bay are the standard order. For something cheaper, walk out through the South Gate to where people who live here eat.

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