After our enjoyable but decidedly warm stop to see the church of Our Lady of the Rocks we re-boarded the boat that had taken us from Kotor up the bay and took a considerably shorter trip across the deliciously blue water to the eastern shore. This brought us very quickly to the small town of Perast.
Perast is pretty much a single road running along the shoreline with buildings set inland from that. The hills behind stop much building too far back so the town feels long and thin rather than spread out. The population of the town was around 300 which gives you an idea of the small size of the place but it was incredibly picturesque. The architecture was lovely and very typical of that whole area of coastline.
A number of shops and vendors were around but we headed as a group for Perast’s museum in the first instance. In truth there wasn’t a lot of interest in the building but what it did have was an air conditioning unit which we took advantage of for a few mintes to cool down in front of and a balcony flanked by stone lions affording lovely views out across the Bay of Kotor and along the shore of Perast.
After the museum we had some time to ourselves to look around. Most of the tour group headed to get drinks or do some shopping where they could but we decided, despite the incredible heat, to wander about for a bit to see what other photo opportunities the Montenegrin town had to offer.
The most notable landmark in Perast was the church of St Nicholas.
The church more-or-less marked the extent of our wandering as we didn’t really have enough time to walk any further along the shoreline without risking a hard march to get back to our tour group in time, something we were most definitely not keen on doing in the temperatures there. We took a slow wander back the way we came with just a few more photos of Perast on the way.
When we reached the meeting point for our tour we had a few minutes spare so we grabbed some gelato from a vendor and stood in the shade of a building to try to regain some composure. We spent a few minutes talking to our guide while we were there who remarked that Montenegro made better gelato than Italy but that he grudgingly conceded Italian pizza was just a bit better. He also mentioned that the temperature was just shy of forty degrees but it had been several degrees hotter a month before and they’d had to shut down the government because nobody could work. We could well believe it.
Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks is a great little excursion for a few hours if you’re in or around Kotor. We’d happily spend a few days in the region without a second’s thought.