Kotor Bay

Perast - the town of sailors

The church of St. Nicolas, the patron of sailors dominates the town. The town has only one street but 18 churches and 19 palaces. The most beautiful is Bujović palace which is a home to a towns’ museum.

Perast has a little pier but it is not good for mooring. The wind is usually blowing from Verige strait directly to the pier and it is hard to navigate when you are leaving the pier.

So, sailors have two options. Either the skipper can stay on the yacht and the crew can go to the town by a dinghy or you can leave the yacht in Kotor marina and take a bus or taxi from Kotor to Perast.

Our Lady of the Rock

This is the only artificial island in the Adriatic and it has a beautiful church and a little museum.

According to a legend the island was built on a rock where two sailors found a picture of a Virgin Mary in 1452.

From that point every sailor who would return home safely would lay another rock and today the locals still do it during the traditional event called Fašinada.

The church was built in 1632 and it has become very important to sailors. It has the biggest collection of silver votive plates in Europe. Each one tells a unique story of hard life at sea and gratitude to Virgin Mary for safe return.

Kotor

Maritime museum will be of interest to curious sailors fond of history. It is located in a baroque palace from the beginning of the 18^th century.

An easier way to visit St. John’s fortress
If you would like to visit Kotor’s walls you can use the stairs or alternatively you can use an old road which is an easier way. It is an old Austro-Hungarian trail which lies just outside the city walls near the Northern Gate. The whole hike in both directions takes around two hours. The entrance fee is around 3 €.

Kotor walls are about five km long and are a unique example of fortification architecture in Europe. They were gradually built between 9^th and 19^th centuries.

The walls were one of the main reasons why the UNESCO put this city on the list of the world natural and cultural heritage in 1979.