Kotor Cathedral

Kotor Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

Kotor's cathedral is ticketed, cheaply, and the ticket includes the reliquary chapel on the upper floor, which is the part worth the money. It sits on its own square inside the walled town, a few minutes from the sea gate, and no booking is needed. Walking tours of the old town include it along with the maritime museum, the Orthodox church on the main square and the lanes that make up the rest of the medieval plan;

two hours covers the town comfortably. Most visitors combine the cathedral with the climb to the fortress above, roughly 1,350 steps up the cliff, which is a separate ticket and a serious hour's work in summer heat. Boat tours of the bay leave from outside the walls and are the other standard half-day. If a cruise ship is in, do the cathedral first thing and the walls later, when the groups have moved on.

Visiting Kotor Cathedral: what to see

Relics of the town's patron arrived from Constantinople in 809 and a church was built for them then; the present cathedral was consecrated in 1166 and is Romanesque in its bones. Earthquakes have shaped it since. The great shock of 1667 brought down the two bell towers and much else, and the rebuilding that followed gave the front its baroque upper stages and the arch that links the towers, one of which was never finished to its intended height, which is why the facade is visibly asymmetrical.

Another earthquake in 1979 devastated the coast and the restoration ran for decades. Inside, a stone canopy of the fourteenth century stands over the altar, carved with scenes of the saint's life, and fragments of medieval fresco survive on the walls. The upper chapel holds the reliquary collection, including a silver-gilt hand and head of the patron, and gives a close view down into the nave. A small archaeological display under the floor shows the foundations of the ninth-century church that stood here first.

Kotor Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Kotor is a cruise port and the difference between eight in the morning and noon in August is the difference between an empty square and a solid crowd. Spring and autumn are far better, with the bay at its most striking under cloud and the fortress climb survivable. The cathedral closes for services and keeps shorter hours in winter, when the town is very quiet and the rain here is among the heaviest in Europe.

The patron's feast in early February brings processions and the ceremonial sailors' guild of the bay out in uniform, a tradition several centuries old and worth arranging a trip around. Summer evenings are pleasant, with the walls lit and the square used by residents rather than visitors. Allow forty minutes for the cathedral and the chapel, then start the fortress climb either early in the morning or an hour before sunset, never in the middle of the day.