Vrmac, the mountain in the middle of the Bay of Kotor

Seen from above, says the Tivat tourist board, Vrmac looks like a ship that’s just sailed into the bay. It’s the mountain between Tivat and Kotor, a long peninsula rising straight from the water that most visitors drive past without stopping. For me it’s among the bay’s most underrated outings, because nowhere else lets you see both halves of the Boka at the same time.

An 8 km ridge above the water

Vrmac is 8 km long and 5 km wide. Its two main summits are Sveti Ilija, 785 m, and Velji vrh, 712 m, according to the Tivat tourist board (OpenStreetMap puts Sveti Ilija at 766 m; I’ve stuck to the tourist board’s number). The ridge is mostly Mediterranean scrub, with the odd pasture among the rocks, wild chestnuts and black pines. The tourist board also calls it an important European mushroom area, which I didn’t see coming.

From the top you get Tivat on one side and Kotor on the other, the bay, the open sea and Lovćen behind. It’s the view that makes sense of the whole bay’s geography in one go.

Walking and biking

Walking is the main thing. Trails run round and over the mountain and work for mountain bikes too. The tourist board says springs of clear drinking water bubble up along the way and that the villages on the route feel like a step into another age. Even so, in July and August I’d set off early and carry plenty of water, because the scrub gives little shade and the sun here is a lot fiercer than a summer’s day on the Downs. The Foreign Office advice for Montenegro is worth heeding here too. Stick to marked trails, tell someone your route, keep your phone charged and ring 112 in an emergency.

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Three empires on one mountain

Its position always made Vrmac strategically important. There are remains of fortifications built and used by different powers over the centuries, defending the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice or the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The official sources I read don’t name each fort or give visiting hours, so I won’t sell them as an organised attraction; they’re ruins you come across on foot.

Churches and villages on the slopes

On the slope facing Tivat lies Gornja Lastva, the stone village with its church of 1410 and the best starting point for the mountain. On Gradac hill, also on Vrmac’s lower slopes, St Peter’s church keeps fragments of 13th-century frescoes that experts compare with the finest Byzantine painting of the time; it’s been protected since 1958. On the southern slopes stands the church of the Holy Physicians, Cosmas and Damian. On the Kotor side, at the foot of the mountain, are villages such as Prčanj.

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