Kotor Attractions

Most visitor time goes to the walled Old Town, where a largely intact medieval street plan sits behind city walls that climb the rock face to Saint John's Fortress. The Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, consecrated in 1166, anchors a townscape of Romanesque churches and Venetian-era palaces built through four centuries of rule from Venice, and the Maritime Museum inside one of those palaces tells the story of the Boka seafaring families who paid for it all.

The walls themselves run to some four and a half kilometres and predate Venice in their lowest courses; the town behind them has been shaken and rebuilt more than once, with the 1667 and 1979 earthquakes both leaving marks, and the restoration that followed the latter is why the stonework reads so cleanly today.

The heritage continues around the bay: Risan keeps Roman floor mosaics from the second century, Perast's baroque palaces face the two island churches in the strait, and Dobrota and Prčanj grew wealthy on eighteenth-century shipping their captains' churches still commemorate. Most sites are accessible without pre-booking, guided tours cover the walls and the Old Town for structured visits, and spring and autumn offer the same ground with a fraction of the cruise crowds.