Kotor, Montenegro
Tucked at the very head of Boka Bay, Kotor is the kind of place that makes you say “wait, Montenegro has a fjord?” – and yes, it absolutely does. It’s actually Southern Europe’s longest and most dramatic one, a winding ribbon of water hemmed in by towering limestone cliffs that make the whole approach feel like sailing into a postcard someone Photoshopped too hard. It’s an anchorage port, so we tendered in on a little boat, then handed our day over to a local guide who loaded us up and drove us around – which is genuinely the best way to see a place like this.
Our Lady of the Rocks
First stop, and an early favorite: Our Lady of the Rocks, a tiny man-made island sitting right out in the bay with a beautiful old church on it whose origins trace back to the 1450s. There’s something about a centuries-old church marooned on its own little patch of rock in the middle of a fjord that makes everyone go quiet and reach for their cameras at the same time.
The Overlook
Then our guide took us up to a high vantage point for the money shot – the whole sweep of Boka Bay laid out below us, our ship parked down in the water looking like a bathtub toy. This is the photo everyone fights over later. Worth every hairpin turn to get up there.
Old Town Kotor
He wrapped the day by dropping us in Kotor’s old town, a medieval maze of narrow, gloriously crooked streets lined with ancient stone houses, old palaces, and churches going back to the 1100s – including St. Tryphon Cathedral, finished all the way back in 1166. For a town this old it knows how to have a good time, too: the streets are packed with pubs, taverns, and cafés. It spoke our language immediately.
