International Klapa Festival Perast

Each June, the tiny baroque town of Perast becomes the capital of klapa — the traditional a cappella harmony singing of the Adriatic. The International Klapa Festival, running for more than two decades, fills the square before St. Nicholas Church with voices that need no instruments, just the stone acoustics of the bay.

Perast itself is a single line of baroque palaces and church towers pressed between the mountainside and the stillest water in the bay, facing the islets that made it famous. It has one waterfront street, no resort sprawl, and an evening quiet in which voices carry beautifully — which is exactly the point. When a klapa opens a song on the square, the whole town becomes the concert hall.

Klapa groups from Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia compete across three categories — children's ensembles, adult groups and new klapa songs — keeping the tradition alive at both ends of the generational span. The best performances are honoured with the festival awards "Peraški kampanio" and the audience prize "Kazada", so the listeners on the square have their own say.

Come for one evening and you may well stay for all three. The programme unfolds at an unhurried pace, the audience drifting between the square, the waterfront and the café tables in between, and the singing carries out over the water long after the formal programme ends.

Between evening concerts, the festival spills into the daytime with tastings of local products and guided tours of Perast, whose single waterfront street, palaces and views of the islets Our Lady of the Rocks and St. George make it one of the most photogenic settings for any festival on the coast.

All concerts are free. Perast is a short drive or boat hop from Kotor, and June evenings on the waterfront are warm without high-season crowds — arrive before sunset to watch the light leave the islets first. The festival's website, festivalklapaperast.com, publishes the detailed programme each year.