The Bay of Kotor in a Day: Driving the Loop

The loop around the bay is about 70 kilometres and one full day. The road runs at the waterline, dives through tunnels, works its way round four basins and returns where it started. You see everything from the car: the towns on the opposite shore, the islands, the tunnels cut into the rock where submarines were once hidden, and mountains that drop straight into the water.

It is one of the best one-day drives on the coast, and it works in either direction.

Clockwise

Start in Kotor (or Tivat, if that is where you are staying).

Kotor → Dobrota → Perast, 14 km, 20 minutes. Along the water past the captains’ houses of Dobrota. Stop an hour in Perast for the waterfront, the bell tower and a boat to Our Lady of the Rocks. See Perast and the islands. On the same road, at Orahovac and Ljuta, are the bay’s oyster farms: Oysters and mussels in the Bay of Kotor.

Perast → Risan, 4 km. One of the oldest towns on the bay: capital of an Illyrian kingdom, and today the place for 2nd-century Roman mosaics, €6. The site is closed on Mondays and for the whole of January. The mosaic of Hypnos, god of sleep, is a real rarity: very few images of him have survived.

Risan → Herceg Novi, 25 km, 40 minutes. On the way is the Verige strait, the narrowest point of the bay at just over three hundred metres, where in the Middle Ages a chain was stretched across to keep foreign ships out.

Herceg Novi — a town of staircases, the Forte Mare fortress, a botanical garden. An hour is enough. From here the Blue Cave is about 10 kilometres away by water. Boats stop at the mouth of the grotto; you go inside by kayak or swim in from the boat, because motor boats have been banned from entering since 2026.

Herceg Novi → Kamenari, 12 km → ferry → Lepetane.

The Kamenari–Lepetane ferry

The key detail of the route. It runs around the clock: every 20 minutes from 6am to midnight, then once an hour overnight. The crossing takes under ten minutes, a car costs €5 and foot passengers travel free.

It saves about 30 kilometres and anything from half an hour to an hour, depending on the traffic round the bay. In July and August the queue at peak times reaches 45–60 minutes, and then you gain almost nothing on time.

Lepetane → Tivat → Kotor, about 15 km. Porto Montenegro is on the way, a superyacht marina on the site of a former naval base.

How much time to allow

• Driving time: 2.5–3 hours
• With stops in Perast, Risan and Herceg Novi: 7–8 hours
• Adding the island and lunch: a full day

Leave at eight or nine: the roads are clear until midday and the light is kinder.

What to know

The road is narrow. A lane and a half in places, with coaches coming the other way. You travel the bay at 40–60 km/h, and that is physics rather than a limit.

Town parking is paid. In Kotor it runs from €0.90 an hour at the outer car parks to €4.80 by the Old Town walls; in Herceg Novi it is €0.70–2 depending on the zone. Spaces in Perast and Kotor are taken early in the day — see parking in Montenegro.

Fuel. There are enough stations, but do not run low on the Risan–Herceg Novi stretch: fuel and petrol stations.

A compact car is easier for this day. Options are on the car rental in Kotor and in Tivat pages.

The same bay from the water

The drive shows you the shores; a boat shows you the bay itself — the Verige strait, the islands off Perast, the mouth of the Blue Cave and Mamula, none of which you can reach by road. Mamula is now a hotel and non-guests cannot land, so you see the island from the water.

The group option is a ship with hotel pick-up, from €53 per person and six hours afloat: Bay of Kotor by ship. It runs in season only, and the company behind it works only with Russian-speaking guides, which for many English speakers is reason enough to take a boat of their own.

A private boat for your group costs from €390 for four hours out of Tivat or from €580 for three hours out of Kotor, and that is the price for the whole boat: yacht charter. The route itself is described in the cruise from Tivat.

If a day on the water matters more than a day at the wheel, start with the boat: the bay looks entirely different from the middle of it. Boats run in season only; there are no trips in winter.

Ferry, parking and entry tickets: prices checked in September 2026.