Perast is the Venetian Ghost Town That Puts Kotor to Shame

Okay so here is the thing about Perast, Montenegro. Everyone loses their mind over Kotor’s city walls—climbing 1,350 steps in July heat like medieval penance—while literally fifteen minutes up the bay sits this stone sanctuary that makes Kotor look like a cruise ship parking lot. Perast doesn’t shout; it barely whispers. It is the single most elegant fistfight between nature and architecture I’ve witnessed in the Balkans, and it is quietly winning. ## The Anti-Kotor No cruise ships. No touts selling fridge magnets the size of your head. Just a single baroque spine of a town, barely two streets wide, pressed between vertical limestone cliffs and the mirror-flat Bay of Kotor. Venice built this place—literally, the Republic of Venice—and left behind palazzi that look like they’re waiting for Casanova to stumble out clutching a bottle of rakija. The town bans cars entirely. You walk, or you take a water taxi, or you don’t bother. The Perast Museum, crammed into the Bujović Palace, holds maritime treasures that remind you this tiny town once captained ships across the Mediterranean. It’s dusty, poorly lit, and absolutely perfect. ## The Islets That Refuse to be Disney-fied You’ve got two rock outcrops staring at you from the water: Our Lady of the Rocks and St. George. Skip the gondola-photo-op nonsense in Venice; here, a local boatman named Gildo (find him at the dock by the museum, he wears a navy sweater regardless of weather) will ferry you out for five euros and zero performance. Our Lady of the Rocks is man-made—literally centuries of sailors stacking stones and scuttling captured Turkish ships to build the foundation—and houses a church that smells like beeswax and ego. The votive silver plates on the walls tell stories of miraculous storms survived. It’s bizarre, beautiful, and blessedly free of audio guides. ## Where to Sit and Do Nothing Café culture here isn’t performance art. At Café Škver, order a karadağska kafa (Turkish coffee) and watch the light change on the mountains. The town has maybe four restaurants total; Konoba Ćatovića Mlini, housed in a 17th-century mill just outside town, serves black risotto that will ruin all other seafood for you. But honestly? The best meal is a bottle of Vranac from the supermarket, eaten on the sea wall at sunset while the water turns the color of bruised plums. ## The Hard Truth There’s no beach. No nightlife. No “insta-worthy” infinity pool staffed by a mixologist. If you need to be entertained, stay in Budva with the techno crowds. Perast is for people who think the ultimate luxury is silence interrupted only by church bells and the occasional goat. It won’t stay hidden—the boutique hoteliers have already discovered the Bujović Palace—but right now, in the shoulder season, it feels like you’ve stumbled onto a secret the Venetians forgot to take back home.