Perast & Our Lady of the Rocks: Boat Tickets & Palaces Guide

Twelve kilometres northwest of Kotor along the sun-drenched shore of the inner bay sits the Baroque maritime town of Perast. and its twin offshore islets , Our Lady of the Rocks (Gospa od Škrpjela) and Island of Saint George (Sveti Đorđe) , form the most poetic panorama in Montenegro. Barely 1.5 kilometres long and built entirely from honey-coloured Korčula and local karst limestone. Perast rose to extraordinary wealth in the 17th and 18th centuries under Venetian patronage. Venice granted its sea captains tax exemptions and the honour of guarding the Venetian war standard (gonfalone) in battle. Within this tiny ribbon of coastline stand 16 Baroque patrician palaces and 19 churches, looking directly out across the Verige Strait to two islands that embody the spiritual soul of Boka Kotorska.

01How to Reach Perast from Kotor: Blue Line Bus, Speedboat or Car

You can travel the 12 km from Kotor to Perast in three ways:

• Local Blue Line Bus (Cheapest & Scenic). Board the hourly municipal Blue Line (Plava Linija) bus heading towards Risan from the roadside stop directly opposite Kotor's open-air market outside the Sea Gate. The bus winds along the single-lane coastal road through Ljuta and Orahovac, dropping you at the top or bottom of Perast in 20 to 25 minutes for €2.00 in cash (as of November 2026).
• Direct Boat Tour from Kotor Pier. Express 2-hour speedboat shuttles from Kotor's Slobode Park pier combine a scenic fjord cruise along the Prčanj shoreline with a 30-minute stop at Our Lady of the Rocks and 30 minutes in Perast. Fares run €15 to €20 return per person (or €35 to €45 as part of the 3-hour Blue Cave and Mamula loop).
• By Car (Summer Traffic Rules). Between 1 June and 30 September, Perast's waterfront promenade is closed to through-traffic. Visitors park at the barrier-controlled municipal car parks at the eastern (Kotor) or western (Risan) entrances of the village (€5 to €8 fixed daily rate as of November 2026) and walk flat along the water.

02Our Lady of the Rocks (Gospa od Škrpjela): The 1452 Man-Made Reef

Unlike any natural island in the Adriatic, Our Lady of the Rocks (Gospa od Škrpjela) is an artificial 3,030-square-metre stone platform created entirely by the hands of Perast's sailors. According to local parish chronicles, on 22 July 1452 two brothers from Perast, the Mortešić fishermen, discovered an icon of the Virgin Mary. It rested on a tiny sea-washed crag (škrpjela) after one of the brothers was healed of an illness. Over the next two centuries, townspeople sank over 100 captured Ottoman and decommissioned wooden merchant hulls filled with boulders around the reef. They also passed a law requiring every ship returning safely to port to cast stones into the water , a custom still celebrated every 22 July at dusk during the Fašinada regatta.

From the central Perast waterfront, locally operated wooden water taxis shuttle passengers across the 115-metre channel every 10 to 15 minutes until sunset. The fixed fare is €5.00 return per person as of November 2026. Boats allow 30 to 45 minutes on the island. Inside the octagonal-domed Baroque church (built 1630, campanile added 1725; €2.00 entry for the church and adjoining treasury museum):

• 68 Paintings by Tripo Kokolja. The entire upper nave and ceiling are lined with 68 oil canvases painted over ten years by Perast's greatest 17th-century Baroque artist, Tripo Kokolja (trained in Venice under the patronage of Archbishop Andrija Zmajević). The panels depict scenes from the Old Testament and the Dormition of the Virgin.
• Over 2,000 Silver Votive Plaques (Ex-Votos). Covering the side walls like silver armour are more than 2,000 embossed silver plates donated by Boka captains who survived typhoons, shipwrecks and pirate attacks across the world's oceans.
• Jacinta Kunić-Mijović's Hair Tapestry (1828). Displayed inside the upstairs museum is a remarkable silk-and-gold-thread embroidery of the Madonna that Perast noblewoman Jacinta Kunić worked on for 25 years while waiting for her sailor husband's return. As she aged, she wove strands of her own golden-brown and eventually silver-white hair into the angels' curls, going blind by the time she completed it.

03Island of Saint George (Sveti Đorđe): The Cypress "Island of the Dead"

Just 115 metres west of Our Lady of the Rocks lies its brooding twin, Sveti Đorđe (Island of Saint George). It is a natural tectonic islet ringed by stone walls and speared by tall black Mediterranean cypress trees. Home to a 12th-century Benedictine Abbey first recorded in 1166 and the ancient graveyard of Perast's noble maritime families until 1866. Its atmospheric silhouette inspired 19th-century Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin's famous canvas Die Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead). Sveti Đorđe remains an active monastic property closed to tourist foot traffic. Even so, the finest perspective of its cypress-shaded stone cloister is from the western deck of Our Lady of the Rocks and from the bell tower in Perast.

04Exploring Perast On Foot: St Nicholas Bell Tower & Bujović Palace

Back on the Perast mainland, begin at Pjaca Svetog Nikole, where bronze busts honour Perast's three historical heroes. They depict Admiral Matija Zmajević, cartographer Marko Martinović (who taught navigation to Russian noblemen sent by Peter the Great in 1698) and painter Tripo Kokolja. Pay €1.00 cash to climb the narrow wooden ladders inside the 55-metre Bell Tower of St Nicholas Church , completed in 1691 by Venetian architect Giuseppe Beati at a cost of 50,000 gold ducats , for a bird's-eye view straight down onto the twin islands and the terracotta roofs of the Smekja, Bronza and Zmajević palaces.

At the western tip of the waterfront stands the monumental Bujović Palace (1694), designed by Venetian architect Giovanni Battista Fonte with five harmonised Renaissance-Baroque arcades. It was built using stones quarried on Korčula as Venice's gift to Captain Vicko Bujović for his heroism against the Ottomans at Herceg Novi. Today it houses the Museum of the Town of Perast (€4.00 entry as of November 2026), displaying 17th-century ceremonial swords, portraits of gonfalonieri captains and original diplomatic charters from the Doges of Venice. Finish your visit on a waterside stone terrace with a slice of Peraška torta, Perast's signature crumbly lemon-and-almond cake baked since the 1600s (see our Kotor and Boka food guide).

05Best Waterfront Dining & Swimming Spots in Perast

After returning from Our Lady of the Rocks and visiting the Bujović Palace Museum, allow time for a relaxed lunch or afternoon swim along Perast's 1.5-kilometre stone promenade. At the western end of the village near the old fortress dock, Pirate Bar offers waterside stone terraces with sun loungers and ladder access into deep, crystal-clear water looking straight across at Saint George Island. For a memorable sit-down seafood lunch right at the water's edge, Conte Restaurant (set on a stone jetty beneath St Nicholas Square) is a top pick. Neighbouring Armonia also serves freshly steamed Boka mussels, grilled sea bream, and black cuttlefish risotto.

If you visit Perast on 22 July for the annual Fašinada festival, arrive by 16:30 to secure a spot along the central quay. At 18:00, a flotilla of traditional wooden boats decorated with poplar branches and rowed exclusively by local men (with the parish priest in the lead boat) sets off at dusk. Rowers sing centuries-old folk ballads to cast a fresh ring of limestone rocks around the foundations of Our Lady of the Rocks, keeping a 570-year-old maritime vow alive.