The Bay of Kotor off season, before the cruise ships arrive

Perast has 237 residents, twenty baroque palaces from the eighteenth century and nineteen churches. In August more people stand on its quay than the town has inhabitants, several times a day. In May and October that same quay is half empty, and the same room costs less than in August. The whole case for the bay off season fits in that one sentence.

GuidePerast: where to sleep and what it costs?Perast →

Perast and its two islands

Perast sits on the headland between the Risan and Kotor arms of the bay, directly opposite the Verige strait — two thousand three hundred metres long and, at its narrowest, only 340 metres across. In front of it lie two islands: St George, natural, with a Benedictine monastery and cypresses, and Our Lady of the Rocks, an artificial island built up with stones around a reef. It began after an icon was found there on 22 July 1452, when sailors started dropping a stone on the same spot after every safe return; today it covers about 3,030 square metres. The custom is still kept every 22 July at dusk, under the name fašinada.

You reach the island by small boat from the Perast shore — a few minutes across, with the church and museum charging their own entry. Inside is a collection you would not expect on an island that size: sixty-eight paintings by Tripo Kokolja, a ten-metre 'Death of the Virgin', and an embroidery by Jacinta Kunić-Mijović that took her twenty-five years and into which she worked her own hair.

Kotor and the cruise-ship question

Kotor is a cruise port, and in the old town that is felt in hours rather than in days. Ships berth in the morning and leave in the late afternoon, so the town is densest between ten and four, and before nine and after six it is the same town with far fewer people. October is no exception: the cruise season runs from April to the end of October, and October sees about as many calls as June. So off season you still pick your hour in Kotor — but in Perast and on the island you no longer need to.

The climb up the walls remains the main thing you pay for, €15 a head. It takes about an hour and there is no shade — in July you set off at seven in the morning, in October at any hour of the day, and that is the most concrete difference between the two seasons, felt in the legs.

Budva as the contrast

Off season Budva does the opposite of Perast: instead of getting calmer, it goes empty. The clubs are shut, the beach infrastructure is packed away, and what is left is an old town you can walk in two hours. That is not a flaw but information — Budva is chosen for July, the bay for all the other months.

Exactly when to go

May, June and the first half of October are the best compromise. The sea is warmer in October than in May, and in both cases prices sit well below July and August. Perast averages 18.3 degrees over the year and around 240 sunny days, but the bay is also the rainiest stretch of the coast — autumn rain can last all day and that is the one real risk off season. November and February are for the committed: just enough is open to keep the place from being empty, and the bay looks its best in low light.

Getting around without a car: a local line runs along the bay between Kotor and Perast, and Tivat with its airport is four kilometres from Kotor as the crow flies and sixteen from Budva. A car earns its keep only if you go further inland — Perast itself is not entered by car, you park at the approach and walk in, which is the one thing that stays simple off season and in summer alike.

GuideKotor in more detail, with the walls, the prices and the quarters:Kotor →

GuideBudva, for anyone going in July anyway:Budva →

The Bay of Kotor is a twenty-eight-kilometre inlet that has been UNESCO-listed since 1979, and not for its beaches — for the way stone, water and town hold together here in a way that has not survived elsewhere on the Adriatic. In August that is hard to see past the people. In October it is perfectly visible and costs less — the only price being that the swimming turns into walking.