Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base

Boka Bay, the Blue Cave, and the mountains right behind them

Montenegro is a bay, a cave and a mountain road. The order matters.

Which boat actually stops long enough to swim inside the Blue Cave. What a speedboat morning out of Kotor costs. Whether the north is a day trip or somewhere you stay. Reviews of every tour you can book in Montenegro.

Start on the water Open the full list →

317tours you can book

$12cheapest trip out

42trips under $50

North Montenegro, Durmitor, Tara & Ostrog Tour

The interiorDurmitor, Tara and Ostrogfrom $96

If you only book four

The Blue Cave, Perast, Kotor’s walls, and a kayak off Budva.

The four days a first Montenegro trip tends to get built around, and what each one costs.

Where to base yourself

Kotor for the bay, Budva for the sand, Podgorica for the road inland.

A walled town wedged under a mountain, a riviera with beaches either side of it, and a flat capital that puts Skadar Lake and Ostrog within the hour. Six places to start from, and the best day out of each.

KotorKotorThe walls, the bay, and every boat that leaves itfrom $30 BudvaBudvaOld-town lanes with sand on both sidesfrom $12 PodgoricaPodgoricaThe capital, and the road out to the lakefrom $20 Skadar LakeSkadar LakeLily fields, wine villages, a wooden boatfrom $15 Sveti StefanSveti StefanThe island everybody photographs from the roadfrom $46 Herceg NoviHerceg NoviThe bay mouth, and the short run to the cavefrom $59

Out on the bay

Blue Cave, Perast, or the long way round Boka.

Nearly every Montenegrin morning starts at a jetty in Kotor or Herceg Novi. Three kinds of boat day, what it costs to get on each one, and how much of it you actually spend in the water.

★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base

The Blue Cave runOut through the bay mouth by speedboat, engine off, swim inside the cave. from $33

Perast and the isletThe church standing on a man-made reef, and the town that faces it. from $24

The whole of BokaSlower loops under the fjord walls, past Mamula and the submarine tunnels. from $36

All 45 boat trips in Montenegro →

Before you book

Montenegro’s most-booked day out leaves from Croatia.

The two most-taken tours in this catalogue both pick up in Dubrovnik and drive south for the day, border queues at each end. Stay on the bay instead and the same water is twenty minutes away for a fraction of it. Where you sleep decides which of these two lists you should be booking from.

Coming down from Dubrovnik

A long day either way, with a border crossing at both ends. Take the earliest departure and expect the coach to fill.

1Montenegro Day Tripfrom $70
2Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotorfrom $66
3Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruisefrom $60

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Already on the bay

The same cave and the same islet, minus six hours in a minibus. Most runs have you back before lunch.

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The other Montenegro

Durmitor, Ostrog and Skadar: the country that is not the coast.

An hour inland the bay disappears and the map turns to canyon, lake and limestone. The Tara cuts the deepest gorge in Europe, Ostrog is built into a vertical cliff, and Skadar is the largest lake in the Balkans. Most of it is a long day from the coast, and it is worth the drive.

Durmitor & Tara Skadar Lake National parks Lovćen & Cetinje Ostrog Rafting & canyoning

Every national park in Montenegro →

What it costs

A cave ticket, a seat on a boat, or the whole boat.

Every tour on the site grouped by what it costs per person. Private charters sit at the top because the price buys the hull rather than a seat on it.

Under $50

Cave tickets, walks inside the walls, and the shared boat runs out of Kotor and Herceg Novi.

$50–150

Full days: the north by minibus, Skadar with a boat on it, Lovćen and Cetinje over the serpentine.

1Montenegro Day Tripfrom $70
2Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotorfrom $66
3Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruisefrom $60

$150 and up

Private guides and chartered speedboats, where you are paying for the boat and not for a seat.

1Montenegro Private Tour: Kotor, Perast,Our Lady Of The Rock,Budvafrom $209
2The Great Montenegro Tour from Kotor – Private tourfrom $230
3Best from our coast (Kotor bay, Budva, Sv Stefan, Skadar lake)from $181

Only here

A church on a made island, a cave that turns the sea blue, a monastery inside a cliff.

Old towns and clear water run the whole length of the Adriatic. These three do not exist anywhere else.

Off Perast

Our Lady of the Rocks

The islet is not natural. Sailors dropped a rock on the same spot every time they came home safely, and kept doing it for four centuries, until there was enough ground to build a church on. They have not stopped: every July boats gather at dusk and throw stones over the side to widen it. The blue dome you photograph from the water sits on top of that pile.

1Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,804 reviews
2Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
3Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews

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Luštica

The Blue Cave

On the seaward side of the Luštica peninsula the limestone is undercut into a chamber open to the sea, and light coming up through the underwater arch throws the whole cave a hard electric blue. Boats go inside when the swell allows and cut the engine. Late morning is the hour; by the afternoon the sun is off the angle and the colour goes with it.

1Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
2Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews
3Blue cave, Mamula island, Submarine tunnels and Our lady of the Rocks (3h)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 575 reviews

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Above the Zeta plain

Ostrog Monastery

The upper monastery is set straight into a vertical cliff face, whitewashed walls filling a cave mouth nine hundred metres up. It has been there since the seventeenth century and is still a working pilgrimage site, with people walking the last stretch barefoot. Go early: the road up is single track and the parking runs out.