Our Lady of the Rocks, the island built by hand

From Perast’s waterfront the church seems to float. A blue dome, a bell tower and stone walls rising straight out of the water, with barely any land around them. It isn’t a trick of the camera. Local people built the islet by hand, stone by stone, and that story is why you should take the boat across rather than just admire it from the shore.

An island built stone by stone

Kotor’s tourist board explains that Our Lady of the Rocks is artificial. It was made by sinking stones and old ships round a reef poking out of the water until there was room to build a church. Legend has it that on that rock the Mortešić brothers found a painting of the Virgin, and the high altar stands directly above it.

The tradition lives on. Fašinada, the ceremony in which stones are sunk round the islet, recalls how it was made, and the tourist board lists it as a reason to come. I haven’t found the date of the next one in what I’ve read, so I won’t give you one.

The church and Jacinta Kunić’s embroidery

The National Tourism Organisation describes a Catholic church built by Venice nearly 400 years ago. Inside, what sticks in people’s minds is an embroidery. Jacinta Kunić, a woman from Perast, embroidered it between 1803 and 1828 while waiting for her husband to come home from sea, weaving strands of her own hair in among the threads. Kotor’s tourist board adds that the embroidery depicts the church’s own altar.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Perast before prices climb.

The island’s museum

Beside the church is a building housing an archaeological and ethnological museum. According to Kotor’s tourist board it holds archaeological finds, paintings of Perast’s ships, pieces of ship’s equipment and navigation instruments, as well as the embroidery. The same source says the islet’s authenticity, rarity and state of preservation counted towards the Region of Kotor’s place on the UNESCO list.

Getting there, and when

The island lies right opposite the waterfront in Perast, and bay tours leaving Kotor and Budva often call there; the National Tourism Organisation names it among the usual stops. I haven’t found boat fares or a museum ticket price on any official website, so ask before you step aboard. The different ways out onto the bay are set out under Kotor boat trips.

The islet is small, so my advice is the first boat or one of the last, when the sun also slants low over the bay.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Perast before prices climb.

15 May

The big day is Perast’s Votive Day, which fits neatly into any plan for Montenegro weather in May. Every 15 May the village commemorates its 1654 victory over the Ottomans with a procession carrying the image of Our Lady, a solemn Mass, dances by the Boka Navy and a rooster-shooting contest on the water. The winner gets a towel embroidered with the year and is expected to buy everyone wine. If you can be there that day, you’ll see the island alive rather than merely pretty. Right next to it is St George island, which is natural.