The Luštica peninsula, olive groves and beaches at the mouth of the bay

Look at a map of the Bay of Kotor and Luštica is the chunk of land closing it off to the south, opposite Herceg Novi. The National Tourism Organisation describes a peninsula of olive groves and pomegranates at the mouth of the bay, and to me it’s the stretch of coast where you can still breathe in August. It holds the best beaches anywhere near Tivat, a fishing village and the Blue Cave.

The beaches first

The headline act is Plavi horizonti, in Pržna Bay, which the Tivat tourist board calls the largest sandy beach in the municipality, half an hour’s drive from town. Close by are Pecka, a 100 m sandy cove tucked into Trašte Bay, and Oblatno with its beach club. Over on the Herceg Novi side is Žanjic, a pebble beach that, according to the National Tourism Organisation, Tito kept as his private beach. I go through all the Tivat-side beaches in Tivat beaches.

Two municipalities, one peninsula

Luštica has no town hall of its own. The eastern half, facing Tivat, has Tivat villages such as Radovići (537 people in the preliminary 2023 census), Đuraševići (467), Gošići (207) and Krašići (138). The western half belongs to Herceg Novi, with the settlement of Luštica itself (231), Rose and Žanjic. Rose, incidentally, doesn’t appear in the census as a separate settlement.

On the Tivat side, the Krtoli shore villages of Radovići, Kaluđerovina, Kakrc and Krašići have rocky beaches with concrete jetties, a constant light breeze and slightly cooler water. The Tivat tourist board quotes the Institute of Marine Biology in calling the water at Kakrc the clearest on the entire Montenegrin coast, thanks to freshwater springs under the sea.

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Rose and the Blue Cave

Rose is a fishing village surrounded by cypress, pine, olive and carob trees, with a concrete-and-pebble beach and very clean water that the National Tourism Organisation recommends for diving. From Žanjic and Rose, boats run to the Blue Cave, the sea grotto of startlingly blue water that’s the highlight of most trips round the mouth of the bay.

Luštica Bay

On Trašte Bay stands Luštica Bay, a resort and residential development 10 km from Tivat airport and 80 km from Podgorica’s. It’s run by Luštica Development, set up in 2008 by Orascom (90%) and the Montenegrin government (10%). There are two marinas, an 18-hole golf course open year-round and The Chedi, a five-star hotel with 111 rooms and suites according to its website. I compare it with the rest in hotels in Tivat.

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

The churches of Krtoli

The Tivat tourist board lists several churches on this shore. St Luke’s at Gošići is, by tradition, one of the oldest in the area, built by Greeks in the 7th century; the church of the Boka Martyrs at Donji Krašići was founded in 1897 by the Austro-Hungarian admiral Maximilian von Sterneck; and on an islet near Sveti Marko stands the monastery of Our Lady of Mercy, with stained glass and a prized library.