Kotor Old Town

What you gain

• ↑The Cathedral of Saint Tryphon (1166 AD) is the finest example of Romanesque architecture in Montenegro — the treasury holds Byzantine goldwork and Venetian relics of extraordinary quality. The climb to the Fortress of San Giovanni (1,350 steps) delivers one of the most dramatic panoramas on the Adriatic: the bay, the surrounding mountains, and the geometric perfection of the walled city below.
• ↑The best evening dining concentration on the bay: Galion restaurant on the sea wall north of the Old Town serves the finest seafood in Kotor; Konoba Scala Santa in the Old Town itself is excellent for slow, local meals. Bokun wine bar in the Stari Grad has the best regional wine selection.
• ↑Accommodation inside the walls — several converted palaces and stone-house guesthouses — delivers an experience of sleeping inside a working medieval city that is available almost nowhere else in Europe at this price point.

What you sacrifice

• ↓The cruise ship problem is most acute in the Old Town. When two or three large ships dock simultaneously in summer (July–August), the narrow lanes of the Stari Grad receive 3,000–4,000 additional visitors within walking distance. The experience between 10am and 2pm on those days is genuinely unpleasant.
• ↓Accommodation inside the walls is limited and often lacks the amenities of modern hotels — no lifts, narrow doors, occasional noise from evening bar traffic. Parking is essentially impossible near the gates.