Perast is one of those places that look as if they were drawn: a row of golden-stone baroque palaces and churches lined up along the Bay of Kotor with hardly any traffic, and two little islands floating opposite in the middle of the water. It is an old town of captains and shipowners that, at its 18th-century peak under Venice, had a fleet of hundreds of ships and dozens of palaces, and today it keeps that stately air, frozen in time. It is part of the Bay of Kotor World Heritage area and is, for many, the most beautiful spot in Montenegro.
The star attraction is the boat ride to Our Lady of the Rocks (Gospa od Škrpjela), the artificial island that the sailors of Perast built up over centuries by throwing stones and sinking old ships around a rock where, according to legend, an icon of the Virgin appeared. It houses a baroque church with a painted ceiling, sailors' votive offerings and a silver-thread embroidery stitched with the hair of a local woman. The other island, St George (Sveti Đorđe), natural and shaded by cypresses, holds a Benedictine monastery and a cemetery, and can't be visited. On land, the church of St Nicholas and its tall bell tower, the Perast Museum and the walk among the palaces round off the visit.
This guide covers Perast with a practical, honest eye: how to get there from Kotor or Tivat, what the boat to the island and the admissions really cost, when the 22 July Fašinada takes place, where to eat good fish and why it is worth, if you can, staying the night to experience the town once the excursions have gone. A small place with an enormous seafaring history, made for walking slowly and looking at the water.
Perast has been settled since antiquity (the Illyrians and later the Romans occupied neighbouring Risan, the oldest town on the bay), but its great era came under the Republic of Venice, which ruled the Boka Kotorska from 1420 to 1797. Located by the Verige strait, the narrowest point of the bay and key to its defence, Perast became a prosperous town of sailors, captains and shipowners. In 1654 its inhabitants repelled a major Ottoman attack, a feat that strengthened its prestige and its privileges with Venice. In the 18th century it enjoyed its golden age: it had four shipyards and a fleet of hundreds of ships, and its captains — such as those of the Zmajević family or the famous Marko Martinović, who taught navigation to Russian nobles sent by Tsar Peter the Great — amassed fortunes and built the baroque palaces that give the town its look today. Opposite Perast, on a reef, the sailors spent centuries building up the artificial island of Our Lady of the Rocks. With the fall of Venice, Perast passed to Austria, through a brief Napoleonic period and back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later to Yugoslavia. Having lost its fleet and its commercial role, the town survived as an almost intact baroque ensemble, now protected by UNESCO. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Montenegro's Mediterranean fjord: centuries of Venetian rule, walled stone towns and a seafaring tradition that left behind captains, Baroque palaces and legends by the sea.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of Perast actually begins a few kilometres further on, in neighbouring Risan, the oldest town on the whole Bay of Kotor. In the 3rd century BC it was the capital of the Illyrian kingdom of Queen Teuta, famous for the piracy her subjects practised in the Adriatic. That piracy eventually brought Rome into the so-called Illyrian Wars. When the Illyrian kingdom fell, Rome took control of the whole Boka, and some remarkable Roman mosaics from that period survive in Risan. Perast, on the shore, was then a minor spot in that ancient world.
What gave Perast its place in history was geography. The town sits right opposite the Verige Strait, the narrowest point of the Bay of Kotor. Any ship heading for the inner end of the bay, to Kotor and Risan, had to pass through it. Whoever controlled Verige controlled the way into the inner bay. Centuries later, that strategic value would make Perast a key stronghold for the defence of the whole Boka. The town's name is linked to ancient local tribes (the Pirustae). Its setting, a sunny slope running down to the sea and sheltered by the mountains, offered everything a town of seafarers could want: shelter, sun and a commanding position over the waterway.
In 1420, like Kotor and much of the Boka, Perast placed itself under the protection of the Republic of Venice, which would rule the bay until 1797. This was the setting in which the town grew and became famous. Perast lay on the very border between Venetian territory and the Ottoman Empire, which ruled almost all of the Balkan interior. It became a lookout post and a breeding ground for sailors in the service of the Serenissima. Its people won special privileges, among them the honour of guarding the Venetian war standard (the gonfalon) in naval battles, a sign of the trust Venice placed in them.
The episode that sealed its fame took place on 15 May 1654. A large Ottoman army of several thousand men attacked Perast by land and sea, aiming to take the town and open the way to the inner bay. The people of Perast were heavily outnumbered, but they were dug in and knew the ground well. They held off the assault and drove the Turks back, inflicting heavy losses and even capturing the expedition's commander. The victory carried huge symbolic weight: a tiny town had stopped the mighty Ottoman Empire. Venice rewarded Perast by extending its trading privileges and its autonomy, and the feat was etched into local memory. From then on, Perast's prestige and wealth kept growing, built on what its people did best: sailing and trading.
The 18th century was Perast's golden age. With barely a few hundred families, the town built up a fleet of hundreds of ships and as many as four shipyards, and its captains and shipowners traded all over the Mediterranean. That wealth was turned into stone. The great families (Zmajević, Bujović, Smekja, Balović, Martinović and others) built the Baroque palaces that still give the town its stately air. There are as many as seventeen palaces and around ten churches in a tiny place, an astonishing density of heritage that only that seafaring prosperity can explain.
Perast didn't just have ships; it had nautical know-how. Its most famous figure was Captain Marko Martinović, who in 1698 effectively founded a school of navigation. Its reputation was such that Tsar Peter the Great of Russia sent him a group of young Russian noblemen to learn the art of sailing. That link with Russia left its mark on the town, which also supplied sailors to serve the Tsar. One of them was Admiral Matija Zmajević, who rose to command the Russian Baltic Fleet. The Zmajević family also produced archbishops and men of letters.
Out on the water, opposite the town, the artificial island of Our Lady of the Rocks kept growing. Tradition says an icon of the Virgin was found on a reef there in 1452, and every captain who came home safely from a voyage threw stones around it. Voyage after voyage, generation after generation, the sailors of Perast built with their own hands an island and a church that are now the town's symbol.
You can't understand Perast without its island. Our Lady of the Rocks (Gospa od Škrpjela) is an artificial island, something very rare in the Adriatic. Legend has it that on 22 July 1452 two seafaring brothers, one of them ill, found an icon of the Virgin and Child on a small reef poking out of the water. When they brought it ashore the sick brother was cured, and the find was taken as a sign from God. From then on, whenever the sailors of Perast came home safely from a voyage, they threw stones around the reef and sank old ships loaded with rocks there. Little by little they enlarged the base so they could build a shrine to the Virgin, protector of seafarers.
Over the centuries that pile of stones became a real island. A Baroque church with a blue dome was built on it, then enlarged and decorated with the captains' donations. Its interior is a treasure: a ceiling painted with dozens of scenes by the local painter Tripo Kokolja, and a marble altar. Above all, there are walls covered in silver votive offerings: embossed plaques showing ships, hands, eyes and prayers of thanks for shipwrecks avoided and cures received. There is also a famous embroidered panel that Jacinta Kunić-Mijović, a woman from the town, worked on for twenty-five years while waiting for her sailor sweetheart to return. She stitched it with gold and silver thread and her own hair, which turned grey as the years went by.
Every 22 July, at the Fašinada, local people repeat the age-old ritual: they circle the island in boats at sunset and keep throwing stones into the water. It is a living tradition more than five centuries old. It makes the church a collective monument, raised by generations of sailors.
The end of the Republic of Venice in 1797 also marked the start of Perast's decline. With no Serenissima left to serve, and with sea trade switching to new routes and new ships, the town slowly lost its fleet and its reason for being. Under the Treaty of Campo Formio, the Boka passed to the Austrian Empire. Then came the brief Napoleonic period, followed by another century of Austro-Hungarian rule, until 1918. Perast's great sailing ships gradually disappeared, many captains emigrated, and the town was left frozen in time, its palaces growing ever quieter. After the First World War, Perast became part of Yugoslavia. In the Second World War, like the rest of the coast, it went through Italian occupation and the Partisan resistance.
Paradoxically, that decline is what saved Perast. Because the town stopped growing, it was never filled with modern buildings. It survived as an almost intact Baroque ensemble, a snapshot of the 18th century. In 1979, together with the whole 'Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor', Perast was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list, which drove the protection and restoration of its palaces and churches. That same year, the great earthquake that shook the Montenegrin coast hit Perast too, and the recovery that followed was slow but careful.
Today, since Montenegro's independence in 2006, Perast has been one of the country's most admired destinations. Many of its palaces are now boutique hotels or museums, restaurants line the waterfront, and excursions arrive every day from Kotor. But wait until late afternoon, when the boats leave and the town empties. Then you can still feel the echo of the Perast of the captains, which looked out over the sea and its two islands and had very nearly everything.
