Paddle out at first light to an island built one stone at a time

Our Lady of the Rocks is an island in the Bay of Kotor that people made. It is a bank of rocks and old ships sunk full of stone, about 850 meters off the waterfront at Perast, with a church on top. Next to it sits a second island with a monastery and cypress trees.

Getting there is the point. At first light the water off Perast is flat and empty, the boats from Kotor are hours away, and the group is already in kayaks, paddling out to the two islands while the mountains are still upside down in the bay.

Later, after breakfast, a boat goes back out so everybody can step inside the church, past hundreds of silver votive plaques, to an embroidery a woman from Perast worked partly in her own hair.

The story goes that on 22 July 1452 seamen found an icon of the Virgin on a rock here, and after that dropped a stone on the spot after every voyage that brought them home. Every 22 July at sunset, Perast still rows out and throws more stones in. The whole island covers about 0.38 hectares.