Cattaro

"As we turned away from Perasto a heavy black storm was gathering over Cattaro: it veiled the grey whiteness of the mountains, added much to their frowning sternness, threw the narrow waters at the bottom into inky blackness, and altogether increased the beauty of the place very much. For ourselves, we revelled in the freshness and novelty (to us) of the rain, and we went on shore to enjoy the shower more thoroughly.

Cattaro itself is certainly a very remarkable and curious place; more picturesque than lovely, and yet possessed of a grand wild beauty which is not easily to be forgotten. The walls of this deep narrow trough appear to rise nearly perpendicularly from the darkened waters at the bottom. Just under the semicircular head of the fiord (the extreme south), the foreground slopes into a few meadows, while a little to the left of this is the town of Cattaro, so tucked in under the frowning mountain over its head, that nobody could possibly imagine from the sea that the town was deeper than the boulevard and the one row of buildings that are immediately visible. But, on landing, one is astonished to find, not only innumerable little narrow streets, but ever so many small piazzas, many-shaped and many-sided, and even little tiny gardens, covered up between walls, and filled with splendid oleanders and lemon trees, which seem actually growing out of the utterly barren mountain; so completely does the rock lean over and mingle itself in with every atom of the town. And these streets are charming - you can scarcely pass a dozen yards of any one of them without lighting on some delicious little morceau of Byzantine architecture - a light, elegant balustrade - an exquisitely-floriated capital - a rich moulding - graceful ironwork - delicately-carved mullions and architraves - all speaking eloquently of the 377 years, when Cattaro was enrolled under the banner of St. Mark. The Venetian lion's ugly face still stares out everywhere from the walls, and although the Austrians have added a little to the fortifications which bristle all round the little city, yet they everywhere bear the indelible stamp of the Republic. […]. 

A grand ravine abruptly closes in the left extremity of the town; while above all are the upper zigzags of the famous scala - the road to Montenegro. The bright red roofs of the houses below soften the contrast between the lofty crags above and the pleasant flower-planted boulevard on the quay, poplars lining the old city wall, and acacias hiding the barracks on each side of the handsome Venetian-built Sea-gate. Scores or hundreds of bright-coloured boats with awnings and flags, and timber-laden brigs, line the quays of the Gate, while on the other is the esplanade and café and billiard-rooms, where an Austrian band performs every evening. Such crowds of Austrian officers and gaily-dressed ladies come out to hear it, that one marvels how the little town can possibly hold so many.  

Just within the Sea-gate is a picturesque circular tower, such us we were afterwards to see in every town in Dalmatia that had been subject to Venice: and some way farther on is the Catholic cathedral, a small but interesting building, with a good façade, consisting of two quaint towers and a handsome porch, above which is an open gallery, from which the bishop gives his blessing to the people assembled in the little piazza below. […]. I was examining its details, when the door opened, and the venerable bishop, whose silvery beard swept down to his waist, came slowly out dressed in black and crimson silk robes, and went into a well-built old palace close by. He did not seem to keep much state, for he was quite unattended; and I saw him take the key of the door from his gold-embroidered pocket, let himself in, and at the passage window stop and light a tallow candle, to enable him to find the door of his inner room. […]. Right opposite the palace and in the same piazza is the Greek church, an early Romanesque structure, once the Greek cathedral; but since the commencement of this century, the patriarch or Greek bishop of Dalmatia has resided, like his Latin brother-dignitary, chiefly at Zara" (pp. 104-107).