Kotor: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Kotor sits at the innermost corner of a bay that winds thirty kilometres into the mountains — not a fjord but a river canyon drowned by the sea. Its walled town was Venetian for almost four centuries, and the walls climb the cliff behind it in a zigzag to a fortress. An hour inside the town, then the climb. Cruise ships crowd it in the middle of the day.
A short history of Kotor
Kotor lies at the inner end of a deep bay, below a mountain up which the walls climb for about 4.5 kilometres. In 1166 the Cathedral of St Tryphon was built here. From 1420 to 1797 the city was ruled by Venice, which strengthened the walls to protect it from the Ottomans. On 15 April 1979 a severe earthquake struck the old town, and that same year it was declared a World Heritage Site in danger. It has since been restored, and since 2006 it has been part of independent Montenegro.
The ten best sights in Kotor
1Sea GateThe main gate of the walled town
2Square of ArmsThe first square inside, with the clock tower
-
3Clock Tower
1602, leaning slightly, with the pillar of shame in front
4St Tryphon CathedralRomanesque cathedral of 1166 and its treasury
5St LukeA tiny church that served Catholics and Orthodox both
-
6Cat Museum
Kotor’s cats in old postcards and prints
-
7Our Lady of Remedy
A chapel halfway up the walls, built after a plague
8St John’s FortressAbout 1,350 steps up the walls; go at dawn or near sunset
9DobrotaA shore of captains’ palaces north of the town
10PrčanjA sailors’ village with a huge church
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Kotor →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Kotor:
Free walking tours in Kotor
The town inside the walls
Kotor sits at the innermost corner of a bay that winds thirty kilometres into the mountains — not a fjord but a river canyon drowned by the sea. Its walled town was Venetian for almost four centuries, and the walls climb the cliff behind it in a zigzag to a fortress. An hour inside the town, then the climb. Cruise ships crowd it in the middle of the day.
- Sea Gate · The main gate, built in 1555 under Venice. Above it are the date of the town’s liberation in the Second World War, the twenty-first of November 1944, and a line of Tito’s: We don’t want what belongs to others, and we won’t give what is ours.
- Clock Tower · The clock tower of 1602 has leaned slightly since an earthquake. The stone pyramid in front of it was the pillar of shame, where wrongdoers were tied and left for the whole town to see.
- St Tryphon Cathedral · The cathedral was consecrated in 1166 for Saint Tryphon, whose relics Kotor’s sailors are said to have bought from Venetian merchants in 809. Its two towers fell in the earthquake of 1667 and were rebuilt in baroque style, and it was damaged again in the earthquake of 1979.
- St Luke · A tiny Romanesque church of 1195 that for about two centuries had both a Catholic and an Orthodox altar, used by both communities side by side. It is now Orthodox, and its floor is paved with the gravestones of old Kotor families.
- Cat Museum · Cats are the symbol of Kotor; sailors kept them on ships against rats and brought them home from all over the world, and hundreds live in the lanes, fed by the townspeople. The small museum shows them in old postcards, prints and stamps.
- St John’s Fortress · The walls run about four and a half kilometres around and above the town, and a path of about one thousand three hundred and fifty steps climbs them to the fortress at about two hundred and sixty metres. Halfway is the chapel of Our Lady of Remedy, built in thanks for surviving a plague in the sixteenth century.
The sailors’ bay
The villages around the inner bay were homes of sea captains, who built stone palaces on the water with the money of Venetian trade. Perast, the finest, faces two small islands, one natural and one built by hand. Half a day by car or boat; Perast is best in the morning.
- Dobrota · A long shore of baroque palaces built by the captains’ families of the eighteenth century, each with its own little harbour. At its height the bay of Kotor had hundreds of ships at sea.
- Prčanj · A village of sailors with a church far too big for it, the Church of the Birth of Mary, which took more than a century to build. The village is proud of its captain Ivo Visin, who sailed around the world in the 1850s.
- Perast · In 1698 Peter the Great sent Russian nobles to study navigation here at the school of a Perast captain, Marko Martinović, before Russia had a navy of its own. The village of sixteen palaces and seventeen churches has only one street.
- Our Lady of the Rocks · The legend says that in 1452 fishermen found an icon of the Virgin on a reef here, and from then on every sailor returning from a voyage dropped a stone on it; they also sank old ships filled with rocks, until an island grew. Every year on the twenty-second of July the people of Perast row out at sunset and throw stones into the sea to keep it growing. Inside the church is an embroidery made over twenty-five years by a local woman, using her own hair.
- Risan Mosaics · Risan is the oldest town on the bay, the capital of the Illyrian queen Teuta, who fought Rome in the third century BC. A Roman villa here keeps second-century floor mosaics, among them a rare figure of Hypnos, the god of sleep.
- Verige · The narrowest point of the bay, about three hundred metres across, where the inner bay opens to the outer. Its name means chains: in time of war the people stretched chains across the strait to stop enemy ships.
The mountain above the bay
Behind Kotor a road climbs the cliff in twenty-five hairpin bends to the black mountain that gave Montenegro its name, and on to the old royal capital. Up there are the ham village, the poet-prince’s tomb on the summit and the monastery of Cetinje. Half a day to a full day; the road is narrow and steep.
- Kotor Market · The market outside the Sea Gate is where the mountain villages sold to the town for centuries: smoked ham and cheese from Njeguši, figs, olives, honey and home rakija. Buy here before or after the climb.
- Njeguši · The mountain village where the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty, who ruled Montenegro as prince-bishops and then kings, was born. Its ham is smoked over beech wood and dried in the mixed sea and mountain air, and the taverns serve it with the village cheese.
- Njegoš Mausoleum · Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, prince-bishop and the greatest poet of the language, asked to be buried on the top of Lovćen. In 1974 Yugoslavia replaced his chapel with a mausoleum by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, reached by four hundred and sixty-one steps through a tunnel; on a clear day the view reaches Albania and the sea.
- Cetinje Monastery · Cetinje was the capital of Montenegro until 1918, a small town in a mountain valley where the great powers kept embassies. Its monastery keeps a relic said to be the right hand of John the Baptist.
- Budva Old Town · On the open sea beyond the mountain, Budva is one of the oldest towns on the Adriatic, said to be two and a half thousand years old. Its walled old town was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1979, and around it is the busiest resort coast of Montenegro.
- Sveti Stefan · A fortified fishing village on an islet joined to the shore by a sandbar. In the 1950s Yugoslavia moved out its last families and turned the whole village into a luxury hotel, where film stars and statesmen stayed. Seen from the road above, it is the most photographed view in the country.
Getting to Kotor and getting around
- Tivat Airport · Fifteen minutes to Kotor; Dubrovnik and Podgorica are the other airports
Cheap eats in Kotor
Montenegro eats from two kitchens: the sea of the bay — mussels and shrimp cooked buzara in wine and garlic, grilled fish — and the mountain above it, with smoked Njeguši ham, hard cheese, kačamak (a heavy porridge of cornmeal, potato and cheese) and lamb cooked under the iron bell. The wine is Vranac, a dark red; the brandy is rakija, often offered on arrival. A plate of ham and cheese with a glass of Vranac costs a few euro.
- Njeguši · Ham and cheese in the village where it is made
- Kotor Market · Ham, cheese, figs and home rakija
- Perast · Mussels buzara by the water
- Square of Arms · Burek and yoghurt for breakfast in the old town
- Dobrota · Grilled fish on the shore
- Cetinje Monastery · Kačamak in the mountain capital
Museums in Kotor
The museums of the bay tell the story of a people of sailors — maritime collections, captains’ palaces — and above them, in Cetinje, the history of a mountain kingdom that held out against the Ottomans for centuries.
- Square of Arms · The Maritime Museum in the old town
- St Tryphon Cathedral · The cathedral treasury upstairs
- Perast · The town museum in a captain’s palace
- Cetinje Monastery · The royal capital’s museums
- Cat Museum · The town’s cats in prints and stamps
Nature and day trips near Kotor
The bay of Kotor is mountains rising more than a thousand metres straight from calm water, and the coast beyond is pines, coves and caves. Above it all is Lovćen, the black mountain that named the country.
- St John’s Fortress · The climb and the whole bay below
- Njegoš Mausoleum · Lovćen national park
- Blue Cave · Swim in the blue light
- Plavi Horizonti · A sandy cove under pines
- Verige · The narrows between mountains
- Mamula · The island fort at the bay’s mouth
Things to do in Kotor with kids
With children the bay is boats and water: a boat to the man-made island, a cave of blue light, cats in every lane, and a castle to climb.
- Our Lady of the Rocks · A boat to an island made of stones
- Cat Museum · And the real cats in the lanes
- Blue Cave · A boat trip into the blue
- Kanli Kula · An old tower to explore
- Plavi Horizonti · A sandy beach
- Porto Montenegro · A submarine in the naval museum
Holy places in Kotor
The bay is where Catholic and Orthodox Christianity meet, sometimes in the same church, and the mountain above holds the Orthodox heart of Montenegro.
- St Luke · The church of two altars
- St Tryphon Cathedral · The Catholic cathedral
- Our Lady of the Rocks · The sailors’ island church
- Savina Monastery · An Orthodox monastery over the sea
- Cetinje Monastery · The hand of John the Baptist
Nightlife in Kotor
Kotor’s nights are in the squares of the old town after the cruise ships leave; the big summer party scene is in Budva on the open sea.
- Square of Arms · Bars in the old squares after dark
- St John’s Fortress · The walls lit up at night, seen from below
- Budva Old Town · The clubs of the resort coast
- Porto Montenegro · Marina bars at Tivat
- Kanli Kula · Summer concerts in the tower
Frequently asked questions about Kotor
What is there to see in Kotor?
The top sights in Kotor are Sea Gate, Square of Arms and Clock Tower. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Kotor?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Kotor without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Kotor?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Kotor, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The town inside the walls.
How do you get to Kotor and get around?
The main ways are Tivat Airport. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Kotor, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Kotor that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Kotor for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.