Montenegro is small. The days are not.
Which Blue Cave boat actually swims. Whether Ostrog is worth the drive from the coast. What a wooden boat on Skadar costs. Every bookable day in the country, reviewed.
The days Montenegro is famous for.
A cave the sea lights from below, a church on an island of stolen rock, walls that climb 1,350 steps, a mausoleum above the clouds, a lake of water lilies and a canyon second only to the Grand. Most trips are built from these six.
Boka Bay looks nothing like the rest of the Mediterranean.
Boka is a drowned river canyon: four basins, narrow straits and slopes that go up 1,700 metres straight off the water. Venetian towns sit on the shoreline like a shelf. Most of what you will do here happens on a boat.
All Kotor days →
The tours half of Montenegro ends up on.
The whole Montenegro list →Boat days out of Kotor and Dubrovnik dominate, and there is a reason: the bay is the country’s best hour. Here is where the crowds go, and what each morning actually gets you.
1
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip
A comfortable Dubrovnik day trip to Perast and Kotor, plus Bay of Kotor views, with an optional boat to Our Lady of the Rocks.
From · $70
Read our review →
2
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor
from $68
3
Swim in the Blue Cave + Lady of the Rocks Tour
from $53
4
Blue Cave, Submarine Base and Lady of the Rocks Tour
from $53
5
Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base
from $39
6
Skadar Lake National Park: Guided Boat Tour to Kom Monastery
from $37
7
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruise
from $62
8
From Kotor: Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base
from $32
Three ways to reach the Blue Cave from Kotor.
All Blue Cave trips →
Everything runs from Kotor pier or Tivat between May and October, everything stops at Our Lady of the Rocks, and the cave itself takes twenty minutes. The difference is the boat under you and how many people share it.
Open speedboat, three hours, swim stop
Out through the strait at speed, twenty minutes in the cave, a stop at the submarine tunnels and back before lunch. Spray the whole way. Bring a dry bag.
Day cruise with a shaded deck
A wide, flat deck, a swim ladder and a proper lunch stop. The bay unrolls slowly: Perast, Mamula, Zanjice, then back under the cliffs while the light drops.
Your own skipper, your own timing
Worth it if you want the cave before the fleet arrives. A local skipper picks the order, waits while you swim, and knows which tunnel mouths the big boats skip.
Two hours inland, Montenegro turns black and green.
The name means black mountain and the interior earns it: Lovcen’s stone shoulder above Kotor, Ostrog glued into a cliff face, Durmitor’s pines around Black Lake, and the Tara cutting 1,300 metres down. The coast road is 25 serpentine bends and then it is another country.
- 1Skadar Lake National Park: Guided Boat Tour to Kom Monasteryfrom $37
- 2Montenegro: Full-Day Tour to Lovcen National Park & Morefrom $89
- 3Great Montenegro Tour-Lovcen NP,Mausoleum Lovcen,River of Crnojevic,Sveti Stefanfrom $89
A day in Montenegro, priced from the pier up.
What a Montenegrin day actually costs, from the cheapest shared boat seat to a chartered car north. Seats on the water are cheap here; the mountains cost you a driver.
Shared boat seats to the cave, Skadar wooden boats, walking tours of the old town, cave and fortress tickets.
The full-day range: Lovcen and Cetinje loops, catamaran days with lunch, rafting on the Tara, Ostrog and back.
Private skippers, chartered cars for the north, and the long Durmitor days that cross the country and return after dark.
Half the bay’s traffic sleeps in Dubrovnik.
Kotor is two hours from Dubrovnik and the day trip is one of the busiest bookings on the whole Adriatic. Coaches leave at seven, cross at Debeli Brijeg, and cover Perast, Kotor and usually Budva before dark. Bring a passport and expect a queue at the border in August.
Three things Montenegro has and nobody else does.
Bays, old towns and mountain roads are everywhere on this coast. An island built by hand, a cave lit from below the waterline and a monastery driven into a cliff are Montenegrin alone.
The Island Sailors Made
Our Lady of the Rocks is not a natural island. Perast’s sailors dropped rocks and scuttled captured ships on a reef for four centuries until there was enough ground for a church. They still do it: every 22 July local boats throw stones off the side at sunset in a ritual called the fasinada. Inside, the walls carry 68 silver votive plaques and a tapestry a woman embroidered with her own hair.
- 1From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 4,084 reviews
- 2Swim in the Blue Cave + Lady of the Rocks Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,462 reviews
- 3Blue Cave, Submarine Base and Lady of the Rocks Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,869 reviews
The Blue Cave Swim
The cave sits on the Lustica peninsula, open to the sea at two mouths. Sunlight enters underwater and comes back up through the sand floor, so the whole chamber glows and swimmers look lit from beneath. It works best between ten and one, and only when the sea is calm; a light bura shuts the trip down. Boats hold twenty minutes inside before the next one wants the space.
- 1Swim in the Blue Cave + Lady of the Rocks Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,462 reviews
- 2Blue Cave, Submarine Base and Lady of the Rocks Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,869 reviews
- 3Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
Ostrog in the Cliff
The upper monastery is white plaster set straight into a vertical cliff 900 metres above the Bjelopavlici plain, and it has been a pilgrimage site since the 1600s. Pilgrims still walk the last road barefoot. Two small cave-churches are cut into the rock itself, and the queue for the relics moves slowly, so a visit needs an unhurried afternoon. Shoulders and knees covered, no shorts.
- 1Skadar Lake National Park: Guided Boat Tour to Kom Monastery★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,344 reviews
- 2North Montenegro, Durmitor, Tara & Ostrog Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 413 reviews
- 3Skadar lake cruise – Virpazar – Kom monastery – Virpazar★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 119 reviews
Boka shuts. The rest of Montenegro does not.
The bura drops off the mountains in a few minutes and every boat stays tied up. It is not a lost day: the monasteries, the Njegusi smokehouses, the Skadar wine cellars and the Kotor lanes all read better in bad weather, and the cave tunnels never noticed the wind.
Where you are sleeping in Montenegro
Kotor & the Bay394 tours
Budva & the Riviera74 tours
Podgorica & the North100 tours
Virpazar & Lake Skadar34 tours
Staying in Dubrovnik33 tours- Every tour in the country →
What kind of Montenegrin day is it?
One week from Kotor to the Tara canyon.
Perast
Lovcen
DurmitorThe newest Montenegro reviews.
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