The strange island that feels like a piece of Venice floated away

A splinter of Venice – a little tower, blue dome and red roofs – has seemingly drifted far down the Adriatic coast like an iceberg in white marble, and become lodged on the coast of Montenegro.

Our Lady of the Rocks looks absurdly out of place in Kotor Bay, a fjord in looks, if not technically in name. As I squint across blue water backed by stony mountains, this church looks like an act of defiance. Even the artificial island on which it sits challenges the waves.

The church of Our Lady of the Rocks in Perast, Montenegro.Credit: Adobe Stock

I’m on a Balkans tour with Collette, a company that cleverly combines want-to-see sights with more unusual destinations that always prove interesting. There’s certainly plenty of the unusual in this part of Europe over the horizon from classic tourist stomping grounds.

We’ve heaved over the brown hills of Croatia and into Montenegro, descending in our tour coach to the shiny shoreline of Kotor Bay. The landscape is epic, and in times past, ships’ captains built baroque mansions on the shoreline at Perast from which to keep an eye on its access to the sea.

One day, according to legend, a sailor spotted an image of the Madonna washed up on an offshore rock. She clearly had an eye to a fine view, right where the three arms of Kotor Bay meet.

If that was where she wanted to be, there she would stay. Local sailors set about scuttling old ships around the Madonna’s rock. Every time they returned safely from voyages they hurled ballast into the sea there. Today, locals still set out in boats at sunset on July 22 to throw more rocks into the water.

By 1630, some 150 shipwrecks had formed enough scaffolding for a small island topped by a Catholic chapel, later replaced by a larger baroque church, as our excellent Collette tour manager Jana Stepic explains as we buzz across the bay in a small boat.

A crucifix and statue of Christ.Credit: Adobe

On the island, I step from dazzling Mediterranean light into a dark interior. Saints and Old Testament prophets float across the walls of the Church of Our Lady of the Rocks. Chequered black-and-white floor tiles are uneven with age. A Murano chandelier winks at a ceiling studded with silver stars.

Silver votive plaques glimmer in the shadows, testament to some 2000 purported miracles wrought by the Virgin Mary on behalf of soldiers, the sick and the shipwrecked. An altar of wedding-cake pink, green and white marble holds the famous icon for which the church was founded, looking out of a hammered silver frame.

Through a low door that forces visitors to genuflect as they pass through it are small rooms crammed with more votive objects, including ships’ lamps and bells and pieces broken off shipwrecks, all frosted with dust.

Beauty built atop wreckage in Kotor Bay.Credit: Adobe

Paintings of caravels, clippers and steamships in distress on stormy seas hang on the walls. In one painting, donated by a ship’s captain, the Virgin Mary rockets across the sky like a meteor about to be entangled in the rigging below.

On the wall opposite hangs an 1828 embroidery made from silk, gold and silver thread, and human hair. In one square centimetre there are 7000 stitches, says Stepic, admiringly. It took 25 years for a sailor’s widow to complete it. You can trace the passing of time in the colour of the hair she stitched with, which changes from brown to grey.

Through the chapel’s small windows, huge views are glimpsed, which seems appropriate. Our Lady of the Rocks is about the human spirit, travellers overcoming the odds of dangerous journeys and giving thanks for the reprieve.

Artefacts on the church walls.Credit: Adobe

There is, I feel as we chug away in our boat, a magic about this place. An island where there shouldn’t be one, and a chapel afloat on dreams.

THE DETAILS

TOUR
Collette’s 15-day “A Taste of the Balkans” tour between Dubrovnik and Ljubljana spends two nights in Kotor and visits many other destinations in Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia. The next tours depart in April and May 2025. From $5399 a person twin share including accommodation, transport, select meals and tour guides. See gocollette.com

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The writer travelled as a guest of Collette.