Perast's two islands: the boat trip to Our Lady of the Rocks and St George

Two islands, one open, one you can only look at

Stand on the waterfront at Perast and you are looking at two small islands sitting almost side by side in the bay, a few hundred metres apart. One, Our Lady of the Rocks, is the postcard: a round white church with a grey dome, a bell tower, and a paved terrace ringed by cypress trees, all of it built on an artificial platform. The other, St George, is wooded, low, and quiet, with a Benedictine monastery and a cemetery among the trees. Boats stop at the first. They do not stop at the second, and understanding why saves visitors from a wasted ask at the quay.

Both islands are covered elsewhere on this site in more depth. This guide is narrower: it is about the crossing itself, what the boat trip involves in practice, how short it really is, and how to get on one without planning ahead. If you want the fuller story of what to see once you land at Our Lady of the Rocks, that guide covers the chapel, the museum and the legend of its founding. This one is about logistics.

The crossing is shorter than people expect

Our Lady of the Rocks sits roughly 100 to 150 metres off the Perast shoreline. On a small motorboat with an outboard engine, the crossing takes about five minutes. Even accounting for boarding, a slow pull away from the quay, and manoeuvring alongside the island’s small jetty, the whole return trip rarely runs past 15 to 20 minutes of actual boat time.

That matters for planning a visit to Perast, because the island stop does not need to dominate a day. A typical sequence looks like: walk the waterfront and the two main churches of the town, cross to the island, spend 20 to 30 minutes there, cross back. Under a calm sea the whole loop, quay to quay, fits inside an hour, church visit included. It is a short excursion tacked onto a short town, not a half-day undertaking, and boat operators price and schedule it accordingly.

Conditions on the day matter more than distance. The bay is usually sheltered, but a strong bura wind from the north or a bad sirocco swell can make small open boats bounce around even over such a short stretch, and operators will sometimes pause crossings rather than run them in poor chop. If the water looks obviously rough from the quay, that is worth taking as a signal, not something to argue past with a boatman.

Why St George stays off limits

St George Island (Sveti Đorđe) is the older of the two islets, a natural outcrop rather than a built one, and it has held a Benedictine monastery since at least the 12th century. Perast families have used the surrounding ground as a cemetery for generations, and burials still happen there. That combination, a functioning religious community and an active graveyard, is why the island has never been opened to general tourism, in contrast to its neighbour a few hundred metres away.

Boat operators know this well and will not offer to land there. What some do offer, particularly on slightly longer Boka Bay circuits, is a slow pass close to the shoreline so passengers can see the cypresses, the bell tower and the cemetery wall from the water and take photographs. That pass usually lasts a minute or two before the boat turns back toward Our Lady of the Rocks or continues on to Perast. Anyone booking a boat trip with St George named in the itinerary should read the description carefully: it almost always means a photo pass, not a landing.

Catching a boat from the quay without booking

This is the part that surprises first-time visitors most: for the basic crossing to Our Lady of the Rocks, you generally do not need to book anything in advance. A line of small open boats, usually family-run, moors along the Perast waterfront through the main season, roughly April to October. Each carries a handwritten sign or a simple laminated price list, and the boatmen call out to passers-by, especially near the two church landmarks in the centre of town.

The usual pattern is a fixed return fare per person, paid directly to the boatman, with departure once a handful of passengers are aboard or on a rough interval of every 10 to 20 minutes in high season. There is rarely a printed timetable. In July and August, when Perast fills with cruise-ship and coach groups passing through, boats leave often enough that waiting more than 10 or 15 minutes is unusual. Outside those months, particularly in shoulder season, it can be worth asking two or three boatmen how full their boat already is before choosing one, since a nearly full boat leaves sooner.

None of this requires English fluency on either side. Pointing at the island and holding up fingers for the number of people is standard practice, and most boatmen who work the tourist trade daily manage enough English for the transaction anyway.

What the trip actually costs

Prices for the informal crossing are not fixed by law, and they vary a little boat to boat and season to season, but the range has stayed fairly consistent in recent years.

Option	Typical price	Notes
Shared local boat, return crossing only	5–10 EUR per person	Church/museum entry usually paid separately on the island
Shared local boat, crossing + church entry bundled	8–12 EUR per person	Some operators bundle, some do not; ask before boarding
Private small boat, just for your group	20–40 EUR total	Faster boarding, no waiting for other passengers
Organised half-day Boka Bay tour including the island	Varies by tour	Usually combines Perast, Our Lady of the Rocks and other bay stops

Cash in euros is the safest assumption; card readers are inconsistent on small open boats. If a fare quoted at the quay seems well above this range, particularly to a visibly touristy group, it is reasonable to ask another boatman for a second price before committing.

Booking ahead instead: when it makes sense

The walk-up boats work well for anyone already in Perast with flexible time. Booking ahead makes more sense in a few specific situations: travelling in a large group that does not want to split across boats, visiting outside the busy season when fewer boats are moored and waiting could run longer, or wanting the island folded into a longer, guided circuit of the bay rather than a standalone stop.

For a short, focused version of exactly this trip, a short Boka boat tour that stops specifically at Perast and the island covers the crossing with a set departure time, which removes the guesswork around queues. For a private option with your own schedule, a private boat tour from Kotor taking in Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks avoids sharing the crossing with other passengers entirely, at a proportionally higher price.

Some visitors reach Perast without a car and prefer the whole outing handled from Kotor. A boat tour that combines Risan with the crossing to Our Lady of the Rocks pairs the island with the Roman mosaics at Risan, useful for anyone wanting the northern end of the bay covered in one outing rather than two separate trips.

Anyone tempted to add speed to the day rather than history should note that the Bay of Kotor speedboat tour with a tube ride is a different kind of trip, built around the ride itself rather than a quiet island stop, and worth choosing only if that is genuinely the goal.

When to go for the calmest visit

Perast sees heavy midday footfall from coach groups and cruise-ship transfers on days when large ships are docked in Kotor, roughly 10:00 to 16:00 during the April to October cruise season. Boat queues on the waterfront lengthen accordingly, and the island terrace can feel crowded around the chapel entrance. Arriving before 9:30 or after 17:00 avoids most of that, and the light on the white stone of the church is better in the early morning and again in the last couple of hours before sunset.

Outside the main season, from November to March, the town is quiet and boats are less consistently moored at the quay; anyone visiting off-season should expect to wait longer for a boat to fill, or to negotiate a private crossing at a slightly higher per-person rate. The church itself also keeps shorter hours off-season, so checking before making the trip out to Perast specifically for the island is worthwhile.

A short stop, not a detour

The combination of a five-minute crossing, a walk-up boat system that needs no booking, and a compact island that takes half an hour at most makes this one of the easiest add-ons in the whole bay. It slots naturally into a wider day around Perast or a longer boat tour of the Bay of Kotor, and it does not require choosing between spontaneity and planning: both work, depending on season and group size. What it does not offer, whatever a boatman might imply on a slow day, is a stop at St George. That island stays exactly where it has stayed for centuries, visible from the water and closed to visitors on it.

FAQ: the crossing to Perast’s islands

How long does the boat trip to Our Lady of the Rocks take?

About five minutes each way from the Perast quay in calm conditions. The islet sits roughly 100 to 150 metres offshore, so the crossing itself is brief; most of a visit is spent on the island rather than getting there.

Can I visit St George Island?

No. St George holds a Benedictine monastery and a cemetery still used by Perast families, and it is not open to tourists. Boats slow down or circle nearby so passengers can photograph it, but nobody is allowed to land.

Do I need to book the boat in advance?

Not for the basic crossing. Small boats line up along the Perast waterfront in season and take walk-up passengers for a fixed return fare, usually leaving as soon as there are enough people aboard or on a short fixed interval.

How much does the crossing cost?

Expect roughly 5 to 10 EUR per person for a return trip on a shared local boat in summer 2026, sometimes bundled with the island’s small museum entry. Private speedboats and organised Boka Bay tours that include the island cost considerably more.

Is Our Lady of the Rocks worth the stop?

For most visitors, yes, but keep it brief. The chapel and its museum of votive paintings and a Tripo Kokolja ceiling take 20 to 30 minutes to see properly, and the setting in the middle of the bay is the main reason to go rather than the collection itself.

What is Our Lady of the Rocks built on?

An artificial islet. Local tradition holds that sailors and captains from Perast dropped rocks on the spot after a religious icon was found there in 1452, then sank old ships loaded with stone around it over the following centuries to build up the platform.

Is there a fee to enter the church on Our Lady of the Rocks?

Yes, a small entry fee covers the chapel and the attached museum, usually a few euros and often collected separately from the boat fare. Opening hours shrink outside the May to September season, so check before heading to the quay.

Can I combine the islands with other stops in Perast?

Yes. Most visitors walk Perast’s waterfront and its two churches before or after the crossing, since the town itself takes well under an hour to see and the boat departs from the same stretch of quay.

For general planning around the wider bay, see the Bay of Kotor boat tour guide, the comparison of private versus group boat tours, and the Kotor by boat itinerary. Perast itself, including its two waterfront churches and quieter corners away from the crossing, is covered in the guide to Perast without the crowds, and boat options for the bay more broadly are listed under boat cruises.

For background on the sea captains who once made Perast one of the Adriatic’s wealthiest small towns, see Boka’s 18th-century captains. Anyone timing a visit around a sunset crossing instead of a daytime one should also see the sunset cruise guide, and paddlers curious about a quieter, human-powered alternative can check the sea kayaking guide to the bay. The Kotor Old Town remains the easiest base for a day that includes this trip.