Sometimes called ‘the Venice of the Balkans’, Perast is a very short bus ride from Kotor, and well worth the trip. We recently spent a day there, enjoying the palazzi, the views, and (duh!) the food. From our excursion to the Risan mosaics, we are now bus experts, so the whole thing came off without a hitch. And now, we’ll always have Perast.
The Palazzi
During the period of Venetian occupation, lots of rich people lived in Perast. Mostly doing maritime things. And so they built fantastic houses right by the water. Some of them are open to the public; we visited the Bujović palace, now the Perast museum. It is not wildly different from the maritime museum in Kotor’s Old Town, but worth visiting anyway. It also has furniture and artifacts from everyday life, including a spyglass and hair curlers.
The Views
It’s awfully pretty here. There’s an unfinished church, which isn’t likely to finish itself any time soon. St Nicholas’ is in two parts, the older bit behind and the newer bit with the tower in front. But Perast’s population is about 300, and their energies are focused elsewhere, mostly on fishing and tourism.
But the real draw is the two islands, Sveti Đorđe (St George) or Sveti Juraj and Gospa od Škrpjela (Our Lady of the Rocks). You can see them teeny-tiny in our picture above, and the second below in someone else’s (much better) picture. St George houses a monastery and is not open to the public. Our Lady of the Rocks is artificial; sailors found an icon of the Madonna and Child on a rock in the sea on July 22, 1452. Ever since then, the faithful have been bringing rocks to the island to make it bigger. Soon it was large enough for a small chapel, and then eventually, a bigger one. You can take a boat here, though we couldn’t because the water was too choppy.
The Food
The food of Perast is a lot like the food of Kotor, mostly seafood. Which – trust us – is not a complaint. But we were eager to try the famous Perast torta, which was excellent, maybe worth a trip on its own. It’s a cake made of ground almond flour, with pine nuts, lemon juice, and maraschino cherry liqueur. There’s a charming story behind this cake which is: the men of Perast were fishermen and seafarers, and their wives worried about them out at sea. So they created a cake that is actually better the longer it sits out (allegedly, up to two months). Sweet, no?
Not a cake person? Don’t worry: just outside Perast, you can also visit an oyster and mussel farm, which has a small restaurant. Now that‘s fresh seafood!
And finally, we tried a palačinke (aka palatschinke) in Perast. We’ve been craving these crepe-y things ever since we left Leiden. Often, they are a dessert, decorated with powdered sugar or fruit. But they sometimes make their way into the main meal, filled with cheese, meat, and veggies. The life-changing one we ate in Perast, pictured above, had ham, three kinds of cheese, and mushrooms. Overkill? Wait till you hear this: then they rolled it up, dipped it in breadcrumbs, and fried it. It’s like a ham-and-cheese-sandwich-fried-burrito, and it was amazing. We’re not saying you should drop everything and head immediately to Perast to get one. But that’s only because we can’t guarantee there will be any left for you.
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