Perast

Perast is surely one of the strangest, and by its history one of the most beautiful places in Kotor bay. Today it is often called the quietest town in Boka. Its narrow streets and numerous, mostly abandoned renaissance, and baroque palaces, testify about the former richness of the Kotor bay, and about the days when there used to be led a luxurious life of its inhabitants.

Perast used to be a town of sailors, and it was know by that even outside the space of Montenegro. We can see even today that famous stone housed and captain’s palaces standing out. There are 16 preserved palaces in Perast, among them is the baroque palace Bujovic at the very entrance in Perast. Other palaces are: Bronza, Sestokrilovic, Mazarovic, Balovic, Viskovic, Pavlovicini, Martinovic, Zmajevic and others.

All of them represent 12 Perast brotherhoods (clans). While along Perast you used to hear the sound of footsteps day and night, and while along the streets you could see the ladies of the rich seaman, and girls in love, walking, in the coves of Perast hundreds of sailing boats used to dock in, and today Perast is mostly an abandoned town, with barely 360 citizens. Even though the situation is like that, one should walk through Perast, and fill oneself with the spirit of renaissance and baroque. Perast during the winter has more sunny hours that the famous tourist places on the Azure coast.

Even though it doesn’t offer lots of events, Perast is quite interesting during the summer. During July and August various festivities like traditional Fasinada – a ritual procession of barges and boast, which take stones with them which is then put onto the Our Lady of the Rocks island, occur there. Fasinada is held in July. In August Perast is a host to the manifestation – Meetings of music clappers – in which competitors – singers compete in traditional singing which is present on the part of the Mediterranean which goes from Dalamatia to Montenegro. Because of the lack of beach zone, the coast of Perast is not suitable for beach tourism.

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