August 7, Sunday - Kotor, Montenegro
This is our second visit to Kotor on this cruise. It is one of our favorite stops, but since we were here so recently we do not have significant plans for today.
On our last visit, we did purchase a Venetian glass necklace for Alice. We both thought we heard the clerk say it was $20 but when we reviewed the charge slip on the ship, we were charged $28. Don’t ask why I did not look carefully at the receipt in the store. Today we will return to the store and check the price. We will probably walk around the old city a bit before we returned to the ship.
We did go to the store and they did have the necklace in stock. It was $28. Either the clerk misspoke originally or we misheard her. In any event, the price we paid was correct. Alice has worn the necklace many times and I really like it too. We have received value for what we paid.
On the way out of the shop, we went into the larger showroom where we had conversed with some of the staff before. Those people were not there this day. Sunday was their day off. The young lady present explained that she would not do much talking. Stefan would answer questions. She went on to explain that last night was Carnival with costumes, masks, and partying. She lost her voice. Stefan was not too sympathetic, but he did an admirable job of filling in. He had gone home earlier. They must have hated coming to work because the ship was back. We left after some friendly banter.
On the way out I noticed that there was a small room behind Stefan that we had not visited before. We went back in and he followed. Wow! This room was full of beautiful icons. They were silver and gold with enameled images of Jesus, Mary, and saints in wooden frames. Some that caught my eye had 2 doors that opened to reveal the image. The insides of these doors had silver images of angels. All of these were accented with small glass beads simulating gems. Alice and I were both blown away.
Stefan explained that these were Slovenian Orthodox icons. That was the dominant religion because of the proximity of Slovenia. This style was tryptic and could stand on the bracket included or hang on the wall. Stefan said that almost every home had one featuring the family saint. It was a long-standing practice for families to “adopt” a saint. This was passed on from generation to generation.
These were beautiful. There were 2 that we found particularly appealing. One was of Jesus with enamel coloring and brilliant gold and silver. The other was of St. Michael the Archangel. It was mostly silver with some gold accents. Alice had been after me to buy something for myself. These were special and I chose the Christ Tryptic for my souvenir. Several years ago Sean gave us a painted Madonna icon. This will hang next to it.
Stefan placed our purchase in the sturdy case that is used for shipping. We will be able to get it home safely in this.
Surprised at the success of our visit, we walked directly back to the ship. There we took some pictures of the city walls. The ship had been able to dock today. Normally this is a tender port. Because we were the only ship scheduled today and the wind was relatively calm we were assigned the dock. This gave us new views of the walls.
Sailaway was beautiful. We passed many resorts and beaches with scattered churches in between. As you can see, some of the resorts are a real scar on the landscape.
It was a beautiful day to be out on the water. Many families were enjoying themselves. A lot of people stopped what they were doing to watch us pass by.
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