Budva's old town on its peninsula, where the second half of the week is spent
The Bay of Kotor by bus and boat, then the pebble coves either side of Budva, all without a car.
Yes, at an easy pace. Add a night in Kotor if you want both Perast and the Blue Cave, since each takes a morning.
Tivat is the near one. Podgorica, the larger airport, is roughly an hour and a half by road from Kotor.
June or September. July and August are the busiest months on these beaches, and they bring the most cruise ships to Kotor.
No. Buses link Kotor, Perast, Budva and the coast road to Petrovac, and boats cover the rest of the bay. In July and August a car is more trouble than help: the car parks at Perast fill by mid-morning.
It is warmest from July to September, at 23°C or more. June and October are cooler, around 20 to 21°C, and still fine for a swim.
Water shoes, because the swimming here is off pebbles, rock or ladders, and there are sea urchins in places. Carry cash too: not every lounger rental or beach bar takes cards.
This route gives you two kinds of swimming. At Kotor you climb down a ladder off a stone platform into a calm, deep bay walled in by mountains, and around Budva you walk into the open Adriatic off pebble coves.
Start in Kotor, the nearer town to Tivat airport, and plan its old town around the cruise ships. Budva is the easier half, with one early start, for Mogren, the pick of its coves.
Fly into Tivat, 20 minutes from Kotor
Kotor's old town sits at the head of the bay under a wall of mountains, and it is busiest while the cruise ships are in. After five, most passengers are back on board and the lanes thin out, so save the old town for the evening.
For a first swim, walk about twenty minutes north along the shore to Dobrota. There is no beach, just concrete and stone platforms with ladders into calm, deep water, free for anyone to use. Make sure the ladder is firm before you climb down.
Come back through the Sea Gate as it gets dark. It opens straight onto the Square of Arms, with the clock tower on one side, and an hour or two covers every lane inside the walls.
Before this day, look up two things: the port's cruise arrivals and the opening time at the wall gate, which changes through the year. Three or more ships on a summer day put more than 8,000 passengers into the old town's lanes, so choose a day with one ship or none.
Start the climb as early as the gate allows, about seven in summer. The steps zigzag up from inside the old town with no shade, and once the sun is on them the climb is far harder.
Halfway up, the church of Our Lady of Health stands on its own terrace, the natural place to stop. Above it the steps get rougher up to San Giovanni, the ruined fortress at the top, with the inner bay below you.
Spend the afternoon on a platform at Dobrota, or go further round the shore to Prčanj, where the platforms are quieter. Shade is scarce in the middle of the day, so bring a shirt or rent an umbrella.
Perast is one flat street along the water with no cars in it, twenty minutes end to end, and two islets sit just offshore. The Blue Line bus gets you there from the Riva stop by Kotor's walls in about 35 minutes, roughly hourly and every two hours on Sundays.
The Saint Nicholas bell tower opens at about ten, so climb it as soon as you arrive. It closes by late afternoon and stays shut from mid October to mid May.
Then take a small boat from the quay out to Our Lady of the Rocks. The boats leave when they are full, with no booking, and the trip out and back, with time on the island, takes about thirty minutes.
After lunch, swim off the steps along the seafront or from the small beach at either end of the village.
If you would rather be on the water, swap Perast for a half-day boat tour from the Kotor waterfront to the Blue Cave on the Luštica coast. Motor boats are no longer allowed inside, so they stop at the mouth and you swim in.
The bus to Budva leaves from Kotor's main station, a few hundred metres south of the old town, and takes 30 to 45 minutes. Buy the ticket at the station, and expect a small charge for each large bag. Budva's bus station is about a kilometre from the old town, with taxis outside.
Drop your bags at your hotel and walk the seafront path about 2 kilometres southeast to Bečići. The middle of the beach, by the floating pier, is the busy part, and the path runs on through Rafailovići and a short, dripping tunnel to quieter Kamenovo.
On public beaches, half the sand is kept free of loungers, so you can lay a towel without paying for one. Hotel sectors sit between the public ones, so read the board where you stop.
In the evening, walk Budva's old town once the stone is lit. Go in through the land gate under the winged lion, and the lanes lead through small squares to three churches at the seaward end.
Mogren is two small pebble coves under the cliffs west of the old town, joined by a tunnel through the rock. They fill fast, so be on the path before nine: it starts past the Ballerina statue and runs ten to fifteen minutes along the cliff.
The far cove is usually emptier, because the tunnel does not look like a way through until you are in it. Both hire out loungers.
With small children, go to Jaz instead, west of town. The water is shallow at the edge, and lifeguards watch the main stretch from June to August.
Spend the hottest part of the afternoon in the Archaeological Museum, a couple of minutes inside the land gate. The Illyrian helmets and grave goods on its first floors were almost all dug up within walking distance of the door, and an hour covers it.
Petrovac's beach is reddish sand under a small Venetian fort, at the end of a bus ride south down the coast road. From the eastern end of the promenade, a lit concrete path crosses a rocky spur to Lučice, a cove in the pines.
Lučice is calm and shallow, and rented loungers cover most of it, leaving small free stretches for a towel. The rocky northern side is in shade from early afternoon.
Stop at Sveti Stefan on the way back in the late afternoon, when the island is in full sun. The classic view is from the laybys on the road above it.
At sea level, Sveti Stefan Beach and King's Beach are open to the public, and Queen's Beach is for hotel guests.
Fly home the next morning from Tivat, where you landed.
All six days land in the app's Plan as your own copy, with the bases, the nights and every stop in place, ready to move around.
