Old Town Kotor

Kotor is the largest old urban settlement in Montenegro. Its historic core expanded on a triangular area between the mountains, the sea, and the river Škurda and spring Gurdić. Within the mighty city walls, its urban matrix generally preserved its medieval composition with narrow winding streets and numerous city squares and “piazzettas” whose main urban features are churches and palaces. Insulae and city houses, whose facades were built of finely dressed stone, domestic or from Korčula, were grouped around them, which makes this whole harmonious and gives it a specific Mediterranean color.

Powerful city walls frame the historical heart of the town, stretching along the edge of the hill St. Ivan to its peak – its highest strategic point. The walls grew successively together with the city. It is not known when their construction started. The oldest parts are those that along the northern gate, to the river Škurda and in the southwestern part by the sea. Their vertical structure was reinforced later, when firearms started to be used, with sloping buttresses on the outside. As of the 15th century Kotor became a border city, and, because of the constant threat of Turkish attacks, walls were expanded and strengthened, and the north door was built (1540), the western door was reconstructed (1555) and southern door next to the spring and bastion Gurdić was reinforced. By the sea and along the river Škurda, several bastions were built with towering Citadel. The walls were built until the 19th century, particularly their upper part. Within them, on the slope of the hill, there is the church of Our Lady of Health, called also Our Lady of Rest, which was used for the rite of the military garrison of the upper fortress.

The oldest recorded archaeological building within the city is the early Christian basilica from the 6th century which was found beneath the present church of Maria Collegiate. It was, apparently, an abbey, which indicates that Kotor was already a significant urban settlement and episcopal city. At the beginning of the 9th century, the city got its patron – St. Triphun (in the local language - Tripun), to whom the Memorial Church was dedicated in the year 809.

A more intense urban development can be traced only from the 12th century. It is only then that a new big cathedral was built (1166), then numerous Romanesque churches - St. Luka (1195), Maria Collegiate, (1221), St. Ana (early 13th century), St. Paul (1263) and some other unsaved churches. As for the Gothic buildings the palace Drago singles out as well as the ruins of refurbished palaces of Buća and Bizanti, as well as numerous remains of architectural sculptures - portals, trifora (multiple arched windows), bifora (semi-circular headed windows) and other relief ornaments. Apart from the local builders, stonemasons and sculptors, special place belongs to Franciscan Vito from Kotor - builder of the Monastery Dečani. Masters from other coastal cities and even occasional foreigners worked in the city of Kotor as well.

As for the craftsmen there were remarkable jewelers, whose products were widely known, and some of them also worked in other countries. Among their art and craft creations - religious, votive and luxury - which are kept in the treasury of the cathedral and other churches, special place belongs to the gilded silver pala in the cathedral.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, a group of painters worked in Kotor, known in the history of arts as pictores graeci. Written sources of the archives of Kotor record the names of Nikola and Manojlo at the beginning of the 14th century and Georgije at the end of the 14th century. Some of those “Greek” painters painted the frescoes in the cathedral and Maria Collegiate of which only fragments are preserved. Little did it get to this day from the greatest of all the painters of Kotor - Lovro Marinov Dobričević, who is attributed frescoes in the church of St. Ana and picture on the board in the Cathedral with the Virgin Mary and Christ, on one side, and Ecce Homo, on the other side.

The Baroque style is the style of many other churches built in that time (St. Joseph, Our Lady of the Angels, St. Ghost), Palaces (Pima, Grubonja, Grgurina) and city houses, while numerous structures, sacral and profane, were redone in baroque style. The needs for paintings and sculptures were mainly meet through the import from Venice. In the city only a few local artists worked such as Fra Deziderio Kotoranin, or foreign artists such as Francesco Cabianca, the Venetian sculptor, who in the early 18th century made his greatest works in the very city of Kotor.

The last major construction projects within the urban core of the city of Kotor were executed in the times of the Austro-Hungarian administration when, in the late 19th and early 20th century, several buildings were built, public and private, in the spirit of secession, which do not fit into the urban core of the ancient town of Kotor in the best possible way.

Because of authenticity and general cultural and historical values as the eternal link between the Mediterranean and the Balkan hinterland, Kotor is on the UNESCO’s list as part of the World Natural and Cultural Heritage.

Maritime Museum

The rich maritime history of the Boka and Montenegro is best seen in the buildings and among the collections of the well-known Maritime Museum of Kotor.

The XVIII century baroque Grgurina palace, which is home to the Maritime Museum of Montenegro, is situated in the central part of the Old Town of Kotor.

St. Triphon’s Cathedral

St. Triphon’s Cathedral is the most significant monument from medieval Kotor. The cathedral was under construction for decades. It was finally completed and consecrated in 1166, of which a written testimony is preserved. It was built on the old cultural place, in which in 809 a small pre-Roman church was built dedicated to the same saint. The foundations of the original church had the shape of a cross with three leaning apsids and the dome above the central part. Its patron was an inhabitant of Kotor - Andrea Saracenis, which is confirmed by the sarcophagus with his name.

The cathedral contains valuable examples of furnishings and works of art, in the church itself and in the treasury-reliquiarum. One side of the ciborium from the original church from the 9th century with a pre-Roman wattle (interlacing ornament) and lions is particularly rare. The newer, high ciborium originates from the second half of the 14th century and is probably the work of the apprentice of Fra. Vito Kotoranin. Lateral apsids have gothic sculptures – stone Pieta of Nordic origin and a wooden painted statue of Vinko Fererski. Four marble altars were made in Venice in the 18th century. A relief of the Virgin Mary with Christ and Saints was made by Deziderio Kotoranin in the baroque manner. There is also a masterpiece of Kotor’s medieval gold and silversmiths – silver and gold-plated pieces.

From the frescoes that decorated the entire church in the first half of the 14th century, so-called pictores graeci, only smaller fragments have been preserved – the Crucifixion and the Resurrection in the apsid, and around ten figures in the apex of the arches between the naves. As far as easel paintings, particularly important are the Crucifixion by Basan Stariji, double-sided icons with the Virgin Mary and Christ in the Tomb, attributed to Lovro Dobrićević, Sts. Vartolomej, Djordje and Antonin by Girolamo da Santacroce, Paying Homage to the Kings by Mihael Najdlinger and several other works by unknown artists.

St. Luke’s Church

St. Luka’s Church is placed on the Piazza Greca in Kotor and its history testifies about a harmonious life of Catholics and Orthodox. 

It is a Romanesque building with modest and harmonious proportions. 

It was built and pained in the late 12th century. Until the end of the 17th century it was a catholic church but due to the wars and a large inflow of people from other parts to Kotor it was conceded to the Orthodox to use it.  Iconostasis is from that time. It was made by the local masters and parts of it were made by the famous goldsmiths from Kotor.  

Gospa od Škrpjela

Gospa od Škrpjela Church was built in 1630 on an artificially formed islet in front of Perast in the Boka Kotorska Bay.

According to legend, after a shipwreck, fishermen from Perast found the icon of the Virgin Mary with Christ on the sea cliff and vowed to build a church on that spot, dedicated to the icon of the Virgin Mary, the patron of seamen and fishermen. The interior of the church is adorned by a marble altar, built in 1796 by Antonio Capellano, a sculptor from Genoa. It holds the famous icon of Gospa od Škrpjela, painted by the famous painter Lovro Dobrićević in the middle of the 15th century.

The walls and ceiling of the church are covered in paintings on canvas by Tripo Kokolja, one of the most famous local baroque painters. The paintings were commissioned by Andrija Zmajević. Sixty-eight paintings, some of which are in large format make Gospa od Škrpjela Church a unique gallery of Southern Adriatic baroque painting. Most prominent compositions are dedicated to the life of the Virgin Mary and are located in the upper parts of the walls and ceiling: the Crowning of Mary, the Death of Mary and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Between Kokolja’s paintings, on the lateral walls, there are votive silver plates with images of Boka ships, which Gospa od Škrpjela, as it is traditionally believed, helped in storms. The church building accommodates a collection of archaeological exhibits, paintings of ships, artisan craftwork and everyday objects.

Sv. Đorđe Island (St. George Island)

The island of Perast Sv. Đorđe can be reached by boat through the Kotor Bay from the direction of Verige. The island with live cypresses, church, priory, ramparts, loopholes and watchtowers, was and still is the inspiration of painters and the subject of oral traditions and legends. There are a church and priory which are assumed to have been built by the Benedictines. For more than 13 centuries this island has been carrying the name of a saint and at the time protector of Kotor.  

Today many call this island the island of the dead since the people from Perast were buried on the island. It is said that it was also called the “cursed island” since the Roman Pope officially cursed it because of a terrible crime that occurred on the island. Christians were afraid to step on it because they were afraid that the anathema of the Pope would get them. There are so many myths about this island...

First archive records of the church and priory of Sv. Đorđe “Sanctus Georgius de Gulfo” dates back to 1166 when Ivan, abbot of Sv. Jurje, attended consecration of the new second Romanesque church of Sv. Tripun in Kotor. However, according to the findings of the ornaments on the church, it is assumed that the Benedictines have lived in the church since the 9th century.

The legend says that the island had been white for centuries until the Benedictines came and planted cypresses – the symbols of death and transience of life. Design of the old church was not preserved, apart from individual details, since it was destroyed by the conquerors and earthquakes, particularly the earthquake in 1667. After that earthquake a simple church was built with a unique collection of heraldic marks on the graves of the old families from Perast. The island of Sv. Đorđe was a town cemetery until 1866 when a new one was built in the northern part of Perast. The priory was conquered by the Venetians and the French and the Austrians used it as a military fortress and built the protective walls with loopholes around it. On the island there are Illyrian graves, Roman inscriptions and Roman tegulae (roof-tiles).

Bajova Kula

This is a very attractive beach and a favorite picnic place of the local people from Kotor. It was named after the legendary hero Bajo Pivljanin who built the tower to be his shelter in times between battles. It is situated on the way to Perast.

It is pebbly, 60 m long, and the sea water is extremely clear. In the background of the beach, there is a dense greenery of laurel trees, the pleasant smell of which makes the experience of sunbathing and swimming complete. In a part of the beach there is a quay where the Kotor inhabitants and the lovers of this beach tie up their boats. You can get here both from land and sea.

Marco's Cape

This is one of the most famous locations for medicinal tourism and rehabilitation. 

There is a beach particularly built for this purpose, which is used only by the hotel guests. The beach is pebbly, 1000 m long and there is a hotel complex of bungalow type nearby named the same. Marco's Cape is situated between Prcanj and Stoliv, in the Kotor part of the Bay.

Orahovac

Orahovac Beach is also a favorite vacation place of the Kotor inhabitants. 

The beach is sunny throughout the whole day and the sea water is crystal clear. It is near Kotor, on the way to Perast. It is pebbly, 1000m long, and what makes it distinctive is its environment - the harmonious unity of the coastline, the sea and houses built of stone surrounded by dense Mediterranean vegetation. The sea water is also extremely clean. The sea fields for growth of edible shell-fish are proof of its purity.