Kotor
A town wedged between sea and cliff, with walls that climb the mountain
- When to go
- September 22° · 9 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 1–2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 4 km Tivat · 40 km Podgorica
- Right now
Kotor takes a day, two with the bay, and that day is built around the cruise ships: their passengers fill the old town roughly from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon, so you climb the walls before that and walk the town after. The town is squeezed onto a narrow strip of shore beneath the mountain, which is why its 4.5 km of walls climb the rock instead of spreading sideways.
The path to St John's Fortress is 1,350 steps and 280 metres of climbing with no shade — 45 to 60 minutes up. Halfway is the 16th-century church of Our Lady of Remedy, where most people stop. Ticketing starts at seven from May to September and at eight outside the season, and that is the hour to be on the first step.
On a summer day several cruise ships can be in the bay at once, and their passengers step off straight at the old town gate. The daily schedule is published in advance, and a day with three or more ships is a day for Perast or Lovćen, coming back to the old town in the evening.
Guides for Kotor
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Kotor in 2 days
→Two days arranged around the cruise ships: the walls and the town before the passengers land, the bay while they are…
Day trips from Kotor
→Lovćen up twenty-five hairpins, Budva in half an hour, Lake Skadar in an hour and twenty — and one trip that is better…
Where to stay in Kotor
→The old town puts the walls and the cathedral at the door; Dobrota and Prčanj hold the same bay without the evening…
What Kotor costs
→The walls, the Lovćen cable car and a hostel bed are the biggest lines in a daily budget for Kotor — all in euro, price…
Two churches and a prosciutto village beyond Kotor's six sights
→Two churches inside the walls that the six-sight list skips, and the village above town that gives its name to the…
What to eat in Kotor
→Njeguši prosciutto comes down from the mountain above the town, and the fish soup and mussels come from the very bay…
The best time to visit Kotor
→In Kotor the month picks the sea temperature and the number of ships picks the crowd — two different calendars.
Getting around Kotor
→Tivat airport has no bus to Kotor, the old town isn't driven at all, and Lovćen is reached by road or by an…
Mistakes everyone makes in Kotor
→Tivat airport has no bus, the Lovćen cable car stops in high wind, and a Lake Skadar boat is priced per vessel; six…
What to see in Kotor
The walls
Entry is €15; you go up from Parilo, behind the church of St Mary, or from Škaljarska pjaca. The walls are Venetian, rebuilt to their present circuit when Kotor was under Venice.
€15 · 45–60 min (to the fortress)
The old town
The cathedral of St Tryphon from 1166, and squares named for what was kept on them: Trg od oružja for the Venetian arms, Trg od brašna for the flour stores. Cats are the town's emblem, with their own museum and a Cats' Square. UNESCO-listed since 1979, the year an earthquake badly damaged the town.
free
Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks
Nine kilometres along the bay in a straight line, a small town of baroque palaces on a single seafront street. Offshore is an island that sailors built up over centuries with rocks and sunken ships around the reef where an icon was found in 1452.
free (town); boat €5 + church/museum €2–3
The Njeguši serpentine
The old road that climbs out of Kotor in twenty-five hairpins, each with a different view of the bay. At the top is Njeguši, the village that gives its name to Njeguši prosciutto and the birthplace of the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty.
free (own transport)
The cable car to Lovćen
A cable car runs from Kotor to Lovćen National Park in eleven minutes, far above the fortress — the view over the bay for anyone who can't face the steps.
€25 (€14 one-way) · 11 min · closed no fixed day — stops in high wind · booking: recommended (online)
The Cat Museum
A small museum a few steps from the cathedral, devoted to the cats that have been part of the old town's streets for centuries. Entry is symbolic, and the takings go towards feeding them.
€1
Two things you probably did not know
Around 1,350 steps lead to the fortress of St John above the town, climbing 260 metres. The walls that scale the cliff are four and a half kilometres long and in places fifteen metres thick.
The cats of Kotor have their own museum and count as a symbol of the town. Tradition ties them to sailors, who kept them on ships against rats and left them behind in port.
Ready for Kotor?
Within reach from here
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