Dobrota, the captains' shore

Leave Kotor through the River Gate, follow the shore north, and the town doesn’t stop so much as turn into Dobrota, a long row of stone palaces facing the water, each with its coat of arms and its little jetty. There’s no big monument and no ticket to buy, yet this is one of the places where the bay makes most sense.

The captains’ shore

Dobrota was Kotor’s well-to-do suburb, says the Palazzo Radomiri hotel on its website, where local nobility and famous captains built their family homes over the centuries. The name, it adds, means kindness. A stroll along the waterfront, past stone jetties and weathered façades, is the best way to imagine who lived behind each door.

Today it’s by far the largest settlement in the municipality. The preliminary 2023 census gives it 7,345 residents, 2,668 households and 4,908 dwellings, against 1,360 people in the settlement of Kotor itself. In practice, this is where the town actually lives.

Dobrota lace

The National Tourism Organisation counts it among Montenegro’s 19 legally protected intangible cultural assets. It says the women who waited for a fiancé, husband or father at sea wove their hopes and fears into its threads, and that the craft is as alive today as it was eight centuries ago. It also gives a sense of the labour, five to six hours for 1 to 6 cm, with at least two hours on the mesh alone.

If that appeals, put the treasury of the Church of St Eustace in Dobrota on your list; the same source says it holds 130 pieces of this medieval folk art.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Dobrota, Kotor for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

Palaces you can stay in

Several noble houses are now hotels. Palazzo Radomiri occupies a shipowning family’s house from the Venetian era, late 17th century, and its website explains that Coronelli drew it on a 1688 map whose original is in the Maritime Museum of Montenegro. The Forza group has an 18th-century palace just south of St Eustace’s Church, with a landscaped courtyard, a belvedere and the Ivanović coat of arms over the gateway. I compare them all under hotels in Kotor.

Swimming and eating

The National Tourism Organisation lists Dobrota among the family beaches of Kotor municipality, noting that most have sunbeds, a café and a boat dock. Think jumping off a jetty rather than lying on sand. For food, Palazzo Radomiri’s restaurant works with local produce, and the hotel itself boasts that the shore has plenty of good places to eat and the bay’s best sunsets.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Dobrota, Kotor on GetYourGuide.

How I’d do it

Set off from the old town late in the afternoon and walk north along the water until the light goes. On the way back, Kotor’s floodlit walls are straight ahead. By car, the shore road carries on towards Perast, 12 km from Kotor, and the full route is in the Bay of Kotor guide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Dobrota, Kotor for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.