St. Stefan & Budva Shore Excursion from Kotor

St. Stefan and Budva

This Kotor shore tour visits St. Stefan and Budva, two of Montenegro's most famous resorts. Both of these beautiful medieval villages have excellent locations on the sea and allows you to get a flavor of old world Mediterranean Montenegro.

After meeting your driver and guide at the pier in Kotor, you start the journey to St. Stefan, about 19 miles (31km) and roughly 45 minutes away. Local clans first fortified this small island around 1442 to shelter the surrounding population from Ottoman raids, and a fishing village grew up within its walls, rebuilt in the 16th century by the Venetian Republic after an earlier Turkish war. By the 18th century about 400 people lived on the island, but the population had dwindled to around 20 residents by the 1950s, when the nearly abandoned village was converted into a resort. Today the island is home to a private luxury hotel occupying the restored fishermen's cottages, connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway. There is about 1 mile of pink sand beach around the island. It is important to note that today the island is private property, accessible only to hotel guests, so it can only be photographed from the shoreline.

Next you drive to the ancient town of Budva, about 6 miles (10km) further along the coast, which is the most famous resort in Montenegro and the focal point of the tour. Old Town Budva is more than 2,500 years old, among the oldest settlements on the Adriatic coast, likely founded by Illyrian tribes around the 5th century BC. The old town lies on a small peninsula, once an island linked to the mainland by a sandbar that gradually widened over time. The old town is surrounded by ramparts dating to Venetian rule, including a medieval fortification system with city gates, defense walls and towers, along with the Citadela, a fortress first documented in the 15th century on a site archaeologists believe was once an ancient acropolis. Within the walls the town is a combination of small narrow roads and little squares with valuable monuments of different Mediterranean cultures.

Your guide provides a walking tour in Budva and then you enjoy some free time for lunch or to do some shopping and self exploration before driving back to the pier in Kotor.

• Due to uneven surfaces and steps in both St. Stefan and Budva's old town, this itinerary is not suitable for guests using wheelchairs.