The Bay of Kotor, and everything behind it.
Which Blue Cave boat actually stops to swim. Whether the cable car beats the 1,350 steps. What a day out to Ostrog and the Tara really costs. Every tour in Montenegro, reviewed.
The days that fill Montenegro’s boats and buses.
A sea cave the colour of antifreeze, an island the sailors built by hand, a walled town under a mountain, a black lake in the pines. Six days most trips here are planned around, and the best way to book each.
One boat day, three ways to spend it in Boka Bay.
All Blue Cave trips →
Almost every visitor to Kotor gives one morning to the water. The difference is whether you stop to swim, whether Perast is a photo or an hour ashore, and whether you are on a forty-seat cruiser or a six-seat speedboat.
Blue Cave, Mamula and the submarine tunnels
Out through the Verige narrows to the open sea, into the cave while the light is still coming through the floor, then the abandoned island fortress and the tunnels the navy cut into the rock.
Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks
Sailors dropped a rock here after every safe voyage for four centuries until there was an island. The church holds the silver votive plaques and a tapestry one woman stitched with her own hair.
Boka Bay end to end
Risan, Perast, the fjord walls closing in above Stoliv. A slower boat that treats the bay as the sight rather than the transfer between two of them.
What Montenegro actually books, bay to Tara.
Every review →The days more travellers take than anything else between Herceg Novi and the Tara, and what makes each one work.
1
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip
Review of the Dubrovnik to Montenegro day trip, with Kotor, Perast, optional boat ride, costs, border tips, and honest advice.
From · $70
Read our review →2
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor
from $66
3
Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base
from $39
4
Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base
from $32
5
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruise
from $60
6
From Dubrovnik: Perast, Kotor & Budva Small-Group Day Trip
from $100
7
Great Montenegro Tour-Lovcen NP,Mausoleum Lovcen,River of Crnojevic,Sveti Stefan
from $89
8
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip with Cruise in Kotor Bay
from $66
Kotor is a small town with a very long day in it.
A walled triangle of stone squeezed between the water and a cliff, 1,350 steps of fortress above it, and a cable car that now does the climbing for you. Most people give it three hours. It repays two days.
What a day out costs on this coast.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what it actually costs. Montenegro is cheaper than the Adriatic ports it sells day trips to, and it shows here.
Cave-and-islands boat tickets, old-town walks, cable-car runs and lake cruises. Most of the good bay days live here.
Full days inland: Ostrog and the Tara, Lovćen and Cetinje, canyoning, the long Durmitor loop with lunch.
Private boats with a skipper to yourself, chartered cars for the mountain roads, and the small-group days that stay small.
Three things Montenegro has and nowhere else does.
Sea caves and mountain monasteries exist all over the Mediterranean. These three are specific to this coast, and they are the reason the boats fill.
Our Lady of the Rocks
The islet off Perast is not natural. Sailors dropped a stone beside a reef after every safe return, and kept doing it for four hundred years until there was enough ground for a church. The tradition survives as the Fašinada: on 22 July the men of Perast row out after dark and throw more rock into the sea. Inside, 2,500 silver votive plaques and an embroidered altar cloth a local woman worked for twenty-five years, using her own hair for the gold-brown threads.
- 1From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,804 reviews
- 2Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
- 3Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews
The Blue Cave
On the seaward side of the Luštica peninsula, a low arch opens into a chamber where the sunlight comes up through the water instead of down through the air, and everything inside turns the colour of glacier melt. It works between mid-morning and early afternoon and it does not work at all when the sea is up. Boats go in one at a time, which is why the small ones sell out first.
- 1Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
- 2Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews
- 3Blue cave, Mamula island, Submarine tunnels and Our lady of the Rocks (3h)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 575 reviews
Ostrog Monastery
A white monastery pressed into a vertical rock face nine hundred metres above the Zeta valley, half of it built and half of it cave. It is the most visited place in Montenegro after the bay, and pilgrims still walk the last kilometre barefoot. Shoulders and knees covered, and go early: the upper monastery is two small rooms and the queue outside them is the whole visit by midday.
- 1North Montenegro, Durmitor, Tara & Ostrog Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 413 reviews
- 2Ostrog Monastery tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 32 reviews
- 3Ostrog monastery and Niagara waterfalls★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 23 reviews
Budva keeps the beaches. The water keeps the caves.
The old town is a walled knuckle of stone on a headland with a beach on either side, and half an hour south sits the islet everyone photographs. The best hours here are spent offshore, in a kayak along the cliffs to the sea caves under Sveti Nikola.
Two hours inland, Montenegro stops being a coastline.
All national park tours →
Durmitor – Black Lake & Tara River Canyon – North Montenegro tour
Read our review →Book these before you fly to Montenegro.
Most of this country can be arranged from a Kotor cafe the night before. These four cannot. They run on sea state, snowmelt, small boats and a wind with its own name.
- 01Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine BaseThe boats go into the cave one at a time and carry fixed headcounts. In July and August the small ones are gone days ahead, and a rough sea closes the cave entirely.
- 02Canyoning in Nevidio CanyonThe canyon is only passable once the snowmelt drops, roughly June to October, and the guided groups are deliberately small.
- 03Epic 25 Turns Downhill Bike Descent w/ Panoramic Cable Car AscentTimed tickets, and the cabins stop when the bura blows hard down the bay. A windy forecast turns the ride back into 1,350 steps.
- 04North Montenegro, Durmitor, Tara & Ostrog TourThe Tara runs high on spring snowmelt and drops through the summer. The full canyon stretch has a season rather than a timetable.
Above Kotor is the wettest place in Europe. Plan for it.
Crkvice, on the ridge behind the bay, takes around five metres of rain a year, and the coast below it gets a serious share between October and April. The answer is not to lose the day. Go underground into Lipa, put a guide on the old-town stones, or sit down to a long lunch and a bottle of Vranac while it passes.
- 1Kotor Old Town Walking Tourfrom $30
- 2Private Walking tour with Wine and Foodfrom $113
- 3Kotor Old Town Small-Group Walking Tourfrom $33
By place — bay, coast, mountain
Kotor265 tours
Budva72 tours
Herceg Novi10 tours
Skadar Lake29 tours
Lovćen & Cetinje27 tours
Durmitor25 tours- Ostrog8 tours
- Every tour in Montenegro →
By experience — boat, boot or table
One week, sea level to 1,900 metres.
Kotor
Budva
Skadar LakeFreshly added, bay and mountain.
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Durmitor National Park hiking tour – easy to moderate
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8-Day Tour Montenegro Durmitor Mountain and Adriatic Coast
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Wine tour- Family winery visit, food tasting & Skadar Lake boat cruise
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Transfer Podgorica city center- Podgorica Airport
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NORTH TOUR Np Biograd Gora-Lake-Moraca Canyon & Monastery-Kolasin
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ALBANIA tour – Rozafa, Skadar lake, Niagara waterfalls, Shkodra
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