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On the Square of Arms, the first square inside Kotor's Sea Gate, Hotel Cattaro puts the old town at your door early in the morning, when its lanes are quietest.
Hotel, Kotor. Meridian Dispatch.
Yes. Hotel Cattaro is open all year, so a winter stay inside Kotor's walls is possible, with the old town lanes, the cathedral and the start of the wall climb all a short walk from the door.
No. Hotel Cattaro is inside Kotor's car-free old town, so guests park at a pay car park beyond the town gates and walk in with their luggage.
By taxi or bus. Tivat airport is about 8 km from Kotor by road along the bay, usually 15 to 25 minutes by taxi, though summer afternoons on the coast road can stretch it to 40 minutes or more. There is no dedicated shuttle, but local Blue Line bus 15 stops on the main road just outside the terminal.
Both are about 90 minutes by road. The Podgorica drive has no border crossing. The Dubrovnik road crosses into Montenegro, a crossing of about five minutes in low season, and the drive runs longer in summer.
Hotel Cattaro is built from three buildings on the main square: a prince's palace, a theatre from Napoleon's time and a city guard tower. The palace was once the seat of Kotor's Venetian governors, and the tower was used for military purposes in the 16th century.
Together the three occupy a significant portion of the town walls, inside the walled old town that UNESCO protects. Across the paving from the hotel stands the stone Clock Tower of 1602, a Renaissance and Baroque landmark that has come through numerous earthquakes.
The square itself is the long, open space the Sea Gate leads straight into, the largest of its shape in the city. From the property the outlook runs to the city walls, the bay and the river, with the mountains around the old town rising behind the rooftops.
Closed to cars, the old town is entered through its gates, so any car drops you outside the walls and you wheel your bags over the cobbles through the Sea Gate. Its vaulted passage keeps a carved 15th-century stone relief.
The Standard Room is 20 square metres and overlooks the square and the mountains. The Deluxe Suite, at 70 square metres, looks onto the square and the Clock Tower, with a living room, two bedrooms and a large bathroom with a shower and a bathtub.
The complex has its own restaurant and a pub, both serving international and local dishes. For a first outing, the climb up Kotor City Walls and Fortress starts at a signed gate inside the old town, about five minutes from the hotel, and runs up roughly 1,300 uneven stone steps.
Bring shoes with some grip. The old town's cobbled lanes are mostly flat but can feel uneven, and standing on the fortress ramparts at the top of the climb needs a ticket.
The nearest sight is the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon Kotor, from the 12th century, a 200-metre walk from the door, which makes it an easy first stroll on the evening you arrive.
Nearest first, all within 3 minutes on foot from the door.
Church of St. Nicholas
Between services you can step inside Kotor's principal Serbian Orthodox church and stand before an icon screen by a painter who had worked in the…
Cathedral of Saint Tryphon Kotor
Worth the short walk from the Square of Arms, Kotor's cathedral holds the relics of Saint Tryphon, the town's patron, in a treasury upstairs above a…
Kotor City Walls and Fortress
A first-light start puts you on the ramparts before the heat, and at San Giovanni, the ruined fortress at the top, you look straight down on the old…
Church of St Luke
From the door of this small Romanesque church on St Luke’s Square, you look straight down the nave to the altar end where, for a century and a half…
Hotel CattaroThings to do
The town
Kotor is a town for evenings: once the ships sail, you have the lanes, the cats and the floodlit walls above you almost to yourself.
Read the Kotor guideLast updated
