Montenegro's islands are small, but each has its own story. In the Bay of Kotor there are the island churches off Perast, Mamula fortress and the Island of Flowers; by Budva lies Sveti Nikola, the largest island on the Montenegrin coast; and in the far south is Ada Bojana, an island at a river mouth. On Lake Skadar, islands hold medieval monasteries and fortresses.
Our Lady of the Rocks and Sveti Đorđe off Perast, Mamula fortress, Sveti Nikola by Budva, Ada Bojana and the island monasteries of Lake Skadar: which islands to visit and how to get there.
Two islands off Perast
There are two islands off Perast, and only one is natural. Our Lady of the Rocks (Gospa od Škrpjela) is man-made. According to tradition, on 22 July 1452 sailors found an icon of the Virgin on a rock in the sea, and from then on they brought stones to the spot until an island grew. The church was built in 1630, rebuilt after the 1667 earthquake and given its present form in 1725. Its museum holds paintings by the Baroque painter Tripo Kokolja and the famous 1828 embroidery of Hijacinta Kunić-Mijović; by tradition she worked on it for 25 years while waiting for her beloved and wove in her own hair. Every year on 22 July, at dusk, the people of Perast take part in the fašinada, carrying stones by boat and throwing them around the island.
The neighbouring island, Sveti Đorđe, is natural, with a 12th-century Benedictine abbey and the old cemetery of the nobility of Perast and the Bay. Boats generally do not land there, so it is seen from the water or the shore. Boats from Perast reach Our Lady of the Rocks in a few minutes.
The mouth of the bay and Tivat
At the very entrance to the Bay of Kotor, on the island of Lastavica, stands Mamula fortress, built in 1850–1854 by the Austrian general Lazar Mamula. In the Second World War the Italian authorities ran a concentration camp there. Today the fortress is a hotel, so only guests can land, while boat trips pass by. In the Bay of Tivat lies the Island of Flowers (Miholjska Prevlaka), with the Monastery of St Michael the Archangel, linked to Saint Sava. Next to it are the islands of Sveti Marko and Gospa od Milosti.
Did you know?
Our Lady of the Rocks is a man-made island, and the people of Perast still make it bigger: every year at sunset on 22 July they carry stones by boat and throw them into the sea around it.
Budva and Sveti Stefan
Sveti Nikola, less than a kilometre from Budva, is the largest island on the Montenegrin coast, at about 47 hectares. It is uninhabited, with no roads or hotels, and boats from Budva take about ten minutes to the beaches on its northern side. A few kilometres south is Sveti Stefan, a 15th-century fortified settlement on an islet joined to the mainland by a narrow causeway. Today it is a hotel complex open only to guests, while the beaches on both sides of the causeway are public.
Ada Bojana and Lake Skadar
In the far south, where the Bojana flows into the sea, lies Ada Bojana, a triangular river island of about five square kilometres with three kilometres of sandy beach. It is reached by a bridge from Štoj and is known for kitesurfing and fish restaurants on the banks of the Bojana.
Lake Skadar has around fifty islands. On Starčevo, Beška and Moračnik stand monasteries from the 14th and 15th centuries, foundations and burial places of the rulers of Zeta, and on Grmožur are the ruins of a fortress the Ottomans built in 1843, which Prince Nikola later turned into a prison. The islands are visited by boat from Virpazar.
