Montenegro fits in a week. The Bay of Kotor eats most of it.
Which boat actually swims inside the Blue Cave. What the wooden boat across Skadar Lake costs. Whether the north is worth thirteen hours in a minibus. Reviews of every tour you can book in Montenegro.
The bay by boat, the old town on foot, the mountain behind both.
Four bookings a first Montenegrin week is built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The bay morningBoat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine BaseOut to Our Lady of the Rocks, into the Blue Cave for a swim, back past the submarine tunnels. Three hours and the whole bay is explained.
02The first eveningKotor Old Town Walking TourKotor inside the walls with somebody who knows which lane leads where. An hour, and cheap enough to do on arrival day.
03The long day outGreat Montenegro Tour-Lovcen NP,Mausoleum Lovcen,River of Crnojevic,Sveti StefanOver the Lovćen serpentine to the mausoleum, down to the Crnojević river, back along the coast past Sveti Stefan.
04The one on the waterBudva Bay: Kayak & SUP Tour to Coastal CavesKayak and paddleboard out of Budva into the coastal caves, which is the only way most of them can be reached.
Every good day in Boka starts at a jetty in Kotor or Perast.
The Bay of Kotor is a drowned river canyon with one road round it and a hundred boats on it. Four kinds of morning on the water, what it costs to get on each, and which jetty it leaves from.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base
The Blue Cave runSwim stop inside the cave, Mamula and the submarine tunnels on the way back.
Round the whole bayPerast, Risan and the Verige narrows, with the mountain wall either side.
By speedboatSix or eight people, no timetable, and you choose where it stops.
Every boat daySunset runs, semi-submarines and the long cruises down the coast.
All 44 days on the water →
Kotor for the walls, Perast for the water, Budva for the beach.
Two Venetian towns on the same bay, a coast of pebble bays south of them, an islet the royals turned into a hotel, a lake that fills with lilies in June, and a capital most visitors never see. Six starting points and the best day out from each.
Kotor: be inside the walls before the ships tie up.
Everything in Kotor →
The old town is four streets deep and it empties and refills twice a day. Climb the fortress steps early, wander the lanes while the cruise groups are at lunch, and take the cable car up the far side in the afternoon.
Inside the walls, with a guide
Four narrow streets, five churches and a cat museum, none of it signposted in a way that helps. An hour with somebody local turns it from a maze into a town.
Up the far wall by cable car
The gondola lifts off the Kotor side and crosses onto the Lovćen road, so the whole bay opens underneath you instead of arriving one hairpin at a time.
Njeguški prosciutto, and what to drink with it
Mountain ham cured in the village on the pass, sheep cheese, olives from the coast and Vranac from the plain behind Podgorica. Usually eaten sitting down, slowly.
Montenegro’s most popular days out.
Every Montenegrin tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Montenegro Day Trip
Travel from Dubrovnik to Montenegro by air-conditioned vehicle, stopping in Perast and Kotor, with Budva added on the small-group option. Guides such as Niko, Nikolas, Adnan, and Milko share local stories and keep the day moving. You get free time to explore, plus an optional boat ride to Our Lady of the Rocks for about €10.
From · $70
Read our review →
2
Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor
from $66
3
Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base
from $39
4
Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base
from $32
5
Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruise
from $60
6
Perast, Kotor & Budva Small-Group Day Trip
from $100
7
Great Montenegro Tour-Lovcen NP,Mausoleum Lovcen,River of Crnojevic,Sveti Stefan
from $89
8
Montenegro Day Trip with Cruise in Kotor Bay
from $66
Perast has two islands, sixteen palaces and no traffic.
The village sits under the mountain halfway round the bay, and the only thing to do is take the little boat two hundred metres offshore to Our Lady of the Rocks, an island sailors built out of dropped stones.
Every Perast day out →
Behind the coast Montenegro turns into a mountain country.
Two hours inland the canyon of the Tara cuts more than a kilometre down through the limestone, the Durmitor massif holds eighteen glacial lakes, and a monastery is built sideways into a cliff face at Ostrog. It is a long day from the bay and the only way to see the other half of the country.
Ham from the pass, carp from the lake, Vranac from the plain.
The food changes every forty minutes of driving. Prosciutto and cheese are cured in the wind at Njeguši, the lake villages smoke carp and bleak, and the vineyards behind Podgorica grow a red almost nobody exports.
What a day out in Montenegro actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The bay is cheap to get onto; the mountains are a long drive and priced like one.
Old-town walks, the group boats round the bay, kayak rentals and the wooden boat across Skadar Lake.
The full-day standards: the north to Durmitor and Tara, the Lovćen serpentine, wine days on the plain.
- 1Montenegro Day Tripfrom $70
- 2Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotorfrom $66
- 3Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruisefrom $60
Private skippers, chartered speedboats and the guides who build the day around you.
Four Montenegrin bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on sea state, wind and a single morning departure, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine BaseThe cave is entered by small boat through a low arch. A swell closes it for the day, so the calm mornings go first.
- 02North Montenegro, Durmitor, Tara & Ostrog TourThirteen hours door to door over the mountain passes. It takes a whole day of a short trip, and it leaves early.
- 03Epic 25 Turns Downhill Bike Descent w/ Panoramic Cable Car AscentThe gondola runs to a published timetable and stops in high wind, which on this bay is a normal afternoon.
- 04Bečići Standard Paragliding Montenegro /All-inclusiveFlights go when the wind on Brajići allows it. Pilots move the slot rather than cancel, so book with a spare day behind it.
Cruise mornings empty the bay of everything except people.
A ship ties up at the Kotor quay and several thousand people walk through one gate into a town four streets wide, usually between nine and one. The answer is to be somewhere else by then: up the mountain, out on the lake, or in the old royal capital behind it.
By place — the bay, the coast, the plain
By kind of day — boat, wall, canyon or table
Kotor, Perast, Budva, then over the mountain: the week almost everybody does first.
DurmitorThree things that only happen in Montenegro.
Sea caves and mountain roads exist all round the Mediterranean. A navy hidden inside a cliff, an island made by hand, and a mausoleum on the country’s second-highest peak do not.
The Blue Cave and the submarine pens
The cave sits on the Luštica shore where the limestone is undercut, and the sea throws light back up into it until the water reads as electric blue. The same boats carry on to Mamula island and the tunnels cut into the cliff at Rose, where the Yugoslav navy parked submarines out of sight. Small hulls only, and only when the sea is flat.
- 1Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
- 2Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews
- 3Blue cave, Mamula island, Submarine tunnels and Our lady of the Rocks (3h)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 575 reviews
Our Lady of the Rocks
The island is not an island. Sailors dropped a rock on the reef every time they came home safe, then sank old hulls around it, and after four centuries there was enough ground for a church. They still row out and drop stones on the evening of 22 July. The votive paintings and the silver plaques inside are the thank-you notes.
- 1Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,804 reviews
- 2Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
- 3Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews
The old road to Njegoš
The serpentine leaves Kotor at sea level and climbs the wall of the bay in twenty-five numbered switchbacks, past the ham-curing village of Njeguši, to a mausoleum on the top of Lovćen. The last stretch is 461 steps through a tunnel, and the view from the terrace reaches the Albanian border on a clear day.
- 1Great Montenegro Tour-Lovcen NP,Mausoleum Lovcen,River of Crnojevic,Sveti Stefan★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 637 reviews
- 2GREAT MONTENEGRO TOUR Cetinje – Njeguši – Kotor – Budva – Bečići – Saint Stefan★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 69 reviews
- 3Private National Park Lovcen with food and wine tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 33 reviews
The newest Montenegrin tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Durmitor National Park hiking tour – easy to moderate
Read our review →
8-Day Tour Montenegro Durmitor Mountain and Adriatic Coast
Read our review →
Wine tour- Family winery visit, food tasting & Skadar Lake boat cruise
Read our review →
Skadar Lake & Virpazar return trip from Podgorica city
Read our review →
Virpazar Skadar Lake National Park Guided Boat Tour
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NORTH TOUR Np Biograd Gora-Lake-Moraca Canyon & Monastery-Kolasin
Read our review →
ALBANIA tour – Rozafa, Skadar lake, Niagara waterfalls, Shkodra
Read our review →
Kotor & Budva Old Towns & Panoramic Views from Podgorica
Read our review →
Private transfer from Podgorica airport or Podgorica to Tivat
Read our review →
Private Durmitor National Park and Black Lake Tour
Read our review →