A Weekend in Montenegro, Off the Path
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Two days in Montenegro is enough for the Bay of Kotor and a taste of the interior, not the whole country. Skip the packed cruise-day itinerary everyone else runs: walk Kotor’s walls before the ships dock, ride the boat out to Perast, then climb the old Njeguši serpentine for pršut instead of joining the Budva beach crowd all afternoon. If you have more time, the 3-day version adds a full Lovćen and Cetinje loop.
Book these before you go
Day 1: Kotor’s Walls and Perast’s Palaces
Base yourself in Kotor. Land at Tivat (7 km away) or Podgorica, check montenegro.travel for current opening hours before you go, and be at the Old Town gates before the tour buses.
- Morning: Climb the fortification walls to San Giovanni / St John’s Fortress: roughly 1,350 steps, around €15, with little shade, so go early or carry water. The full loop of the walled Old Town, with St Tryphon’s Cathedral and the Sea Gate, takes another 2 to 3 hours. The whole bay carries UNESCO status as the Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor , inscribed 1979, and the cats that colonize every square (there is even a small cat museum) are as much a Kotor fixture as the walls.
- Afternoon: Take the hourly Blue Line bus (about €1.50) or a short drive to Perast, a Baroque village of about 237 people whose merchant families once ran 20 palaces and 19 churches. From the waterfront, a boat (roughly €5 to €10 return, verify locally) crosses to Our Lady of the Rocks, an artificial islet built stone by stone since a fisherman’s icon turned up on the reef in 1452. The chapel holds 68 Baroque paintings and a tapestry partly stitched from human hair.
- Evening: Dinner in Kotor. Order Njeguši pršut and cheese as a starter, they come from the mountain village you will drive through tomorrow.
Day 2: The Njeguši Serpentine, Then Budva
This is the offbeat half of the weekend, a mountain detour most 2-day visitors skip entirely.
- Morning: Drive the old switchback road out of Kotor toward Njeguši village, birthplace of the Petrović dynasty and still the source of the country’s best smoked pršut and hard mountain cheese, both cured by the cold wind off Lovćen. Buy a plate direct from a family smokehouse rather than a coastal souvenir shop. Loop back down to Kotor, the round trip runs well under two hours if you do not linger.
- Afternoon: Drive or bus to Budva (about 30 minutes), Montenegro’s nightlife capital and beach engine. Walk the Citadel and the reconstructed Old Town (rebuilt after the 1979 earthquake), then continue about 10 km to Sveti Stefan. The islet itself is a private Aman resort , guests and diners only, so view the rose-tiled rooftops from Queen’s Beach next to Villa Miločer instead of expecting to walk across.
- Evening: Stay in Budva if you want the nightlife, or head back to Kotor for a quieter last night.
Route at a glance
| Leg | Distance/time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kotor Old Town walls | ~1,350 steps | ~€15 entry, early morning best |
| Kotor to Perast | 15-45 min | Blue Line bus ~€1.50 |
| Perast to Our Lady of the Rocks | ~15 min by boat | ~€5-10 return (verify) |
| Kotor to Njeguši (round trip) | under 2 hours | serpentine road, rental car recommended |
| Kotor to Budva | ~30 min | frequent buses |
Do you need a car for this weekend?
Not strictly. Buses and the hourly Perast line cover Day 1 entirely. Day 2’s Njeguši detour is faster and far more flexible with a rental car, since there is no direct bus up the switchbacks, but a taxi from Kotor works if you would rather not drive the hairpins yourself.
Is two days enough to see Durmitor too?
No, and do not try. Durmitor National Park is roughly 2 hours 50 minutes from Kotor each way, an overnight trip at minimum. Trying to fit it into a 2-day coastal weekend means hours in the car and no real time at Black Lake. Save it for a longer trip, see the montenegro-balkans overview for how the regions fit together.
One souvenir worth carrying home over any fridge magnet: a vacuum-packed half kilo of Njeguši pršut from the smokehouse itself, not the airport gift shop.