Explore Boka Bay
with RIJO

Our Lady of the Rocks is certainly one of the most beautiful scenes in the world. From the docks of the half-abandoned ancient Perast, this scene gained a particularly unreal dimension.

Our Lady of the Rocks is an artificial island, which adorns the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro.  This island was created by the intertwining of religion and tradition, as well as the persistence, desire and will of the inhabitants, primarily the town of Perast.  The island was created around the 15th century, where, according to the legend of the Moršić brothers, on July 22, 1452, they found an icon of the Mother of God with a child in a rock in the middle of the sea.  There, the people of Perast decided to lay stones and build a small chapel dedicated to the Mother of God.  Then, in the traditional custom of Fashinada, they dumped stones for centuries, sank dilapidated boats and ships, so that over time the surface of the island expanded and the church of Our Lady of Skrpjela is located on it.

 Today's larger church of Our Lady of The Rocks was built around 1628-1630 by the Venetians and is one of the most important historical and cultural monuments of the Bay of Kotor.  The church was damaged in the earthquakes of 1667, but was soon rebuilt.

 The unusual tapestry that is located in this church and is worthy of Our Lady and our attention, is a life's work of hope of a girl, woman and eventually old woman - Jacinta Kunić-Mijović from Perast. She wove her love and hair into tapestry while waiting for her beloved to return from the sea.  The tapestry began in 1803 and then a young girl wove golden hair into it, and it ended in 1828 with her gray hair and loss of hope, but also the sight, which according to legend she lost while knitting this work.

 Even today, on the day of the Fascinada manifestation, July 22, at the end of the day, boats carry stones decorated with apple branches to the island and set it there.  

This island as well as every detail related to it will surely leave you breathless.

Blue Cave is one of the largest natural cereations in a series of caves on this peninsula, and was formed at the foot of a 30-meter-high cliff, as a result of thousands of years of sea waves hitting the porous rocks of Lustica.

The cave has two entrances, smaller, on the south side and larger, 3 meters high and 15 meters wide, located on the southwest side.  Boats and smaller boats can enter the cave through a larger entrance, which allows tourists to attend indescribable games of light and water in the interior.

This natural hall, with a vault at 9 meters above sea level, is a unique stage of natural wonders, which will leave everyone who visits the Blue Cave breathless.

When the days are clear and sunny, through the entrances of the cave, sunlight enters its interior, and there it refracts on the surface of the water in indescribable shades of blue making the water and cave walls the color after which the cave is named.

You will hardly be able to see such shades of blue anywhere in the world. The resonance of this cave turns every sound inside it into an echo, which is another phenomenon characteristic of this hidden wonder of nature, and one of the most beautiful places on our coast.

 Perast is an ancient city in Montenegro.  It is located on the shores of the Bay of Kotor on the Adriatic Sea, a few kilometers northwest of Kotor.  Perast lies at the foot of the hill of St. Elijah (873 m).  

The first memory of Perast dates back to 1336 - at that time it was a small fishing village, which had a shipyard, and there were always several commercial and fishing boats in the port.

There used to live 12 noble families living in the city, who built baroque palaces and churches.  Perast is  proud of that until this day. The oldest of them is the Viskovic Palace.  The most beautiful architectural masterpiece of Perast is Bujović's villa, built on the money of the Venetian Republic, designed by the Venetian architect Giovanni Battista Fontana.  The castle has the museum of the city of Perast, which presents a collection of nautical maps, ship models, portraits of top sailors, weapons and archival documents.  The main exhibition of the museum is composed of donations from the heirs of famous families of Perast.  Here you can see portraits of famous sailors from Perast and a collection of weapons.  Inside the museum, the original decree of Peter I was presented, in which he ordered to send Russian sailors to Perast for training in maritime affairs.  

As in other towns of Boka, Perast has many churches.  The main temple of the city is the church of St. Nicholas, built in 1616.  Perast is a small town that attracts tourists with its breathtaking sights. This city is worth choosing if you want to enjoy the old narrow streets and indescribably beautiful architecture. During the summer, traffic is closed on the promenade, so guests can walk safely and enjoy the views of the coastal restaurants.

Mamula is  located in the Herceg Novi part of the bay, between the Lustica and Prevlaka peninsulas, 6.3 km away from Herceg Novi.

At the time when this part of the coast was under the rule of the Venetian Republic, the island was also known as Rondina.  It is circular in shape, 200 meters in diameter.  About 80% of the island's surface is occupied by the fortress, which was built in 1853 by the Austro-Hungarian general Lazar Mamula (1795-1878).

The fortress, together with the fortifications of Arza on Luštica and the Fort of Prevlaka on Cape Oštro (Prevlaka), had an important strategic importance in the defense of Boka. In fact, during both world wars, the fortress served as a notorious prison known for its cruelty (Kampo Mamula).  During the Second World War, the Italians set up a concentration camp there, in which a total of 2,300 people were imprisoned. 

Today, access to tourists is prohibited. It is planned to develop elite tourism, and foreign investors are building a luxury resort on the site of the fortress.

St. George is a Catholic church built on a natural island. There is a Benedictine monastery from the tenth century, and a small church dedicated to St. George on the island.

It is famous for the story of "our Perast's"  Romeo and Julia, two young people who were separated by death and also reunited. The story begins in 1813, when the Bay of Kotor (but not Perast) was under the occupation of Napoleon Bonaparte.  Ante Slović, a young soldier in Napoleon's army, was stationed on the island of St. George.  In Perast he met young Katica and they fell in love very quickly.  One day, Ante was ordered to hit Perast with a grenade from the island.  He fired the first and last grenade and Perast surrendered.

Happy that it all ended so quickly, Ante went to town to kiss his sweetheart, however, he found her dead.  She was killed by a grenade with which Ante targeted Perast.  After that unfortunate event, Ante left the army and asked people of Perast to bury Katica on the island.  Ante became the eternal guardian of her grave.  Until the end of his life, he lived there and guarded her grave. People called him Fra Frane. 

Today, it is possible to see two monuments next to each other on the island.  On one is written Katica and on the other Fra Frane.

The island has been leased by the diocese of Subotica for the last 50 years and is therefore not open to visitors.

Verige is the narrowest (250 m) part of the Bay of Kotor and is located at the junction of Tivat and Risan and Kotor Bays, between Capes Đinović and Đurić, the hill of St. Elijah.  The name Verige was given during the reign of King Lajos, who blocked the sea with chains in 1381. in order to prevent the penetration of Venetian galleys into the Bay of Kotor and the attack on the city of Kotor, which was under Hungarian protectorate.  On both sides of the bay, at Cape Đinović and Đurić, there are still the remains of walls, a watchtower.  Lazar Tomanović wrote that in the old days, but also in the newest ones (1859), chains were stretched during the war, so that enemy ships did not go further towards Kotor.

Not far from Kotor, only half an hour away by tourist boat, on the Lustica peninsula, there are abandoned and devastated war tunnels - Rakite, Spilice and Rose, which do not serve their primary function.  They were made during the Yugoslav Navy and today they are a real attraction for tourists but also witnesses of past times.  The tunnels were intended to shield from enemy reconnaissance and to protect against air attacks, smaller warships such as gunboats, missiles and torpedo boats.

The "Rose" tunnel has been abandoned and stolen for a long time. At one time it even hosted summer festivals of electronic music called "Entrance". Two submarines could fit in it, and mines and torpedoes could be loaded in the tunnel, as well as recharge their batteries with electricity from the generator that was located there.

The other two trenches, "Rakite" and "Spilice", located on the coast of Lustica, east of Rosa, were in use until the early 2000s, and are still formally in the service of the Montenegrin Navy.