Bajova Kulapebble · 118 m · water ExcellentAn organised 118-metre shingle beach at Dražin Vrt on the Kotor–Risan road, named for Bajo Pivljanin’s tower above it, with a stone swimming platform and the Boka wall across the water.Bajova Kula or Risan?
Two beaches 5.0 km apart, measured the same way. Bajova Kula and Risan side by side, on the nine things that decide which one your afternoon should go to.
Bajova Kulapebble · 118 m · water ExcellentAn organised 118-metre shingle beach at Dražin Vrt on the Kotor–Risan road, named for Bajo Pivljanin’s tower above it, with a stone swimming platform and the Boka wall across the water.
Risanpebble · 200 m · water ExcellentPebble coves either side of the harbour of the oldest town on the bay, with the Orjen peaks reflected in the flat water and a Roman mosaic of the god of sleep 300 m from the shore.The short answer
Choose Bajova Kula for
- shade that is not rented
- loungers, food and somewhere to change
- arriving by road
Choose Risan for
- room — it is half again as long
- nothing built on it
Measure by measure
| Measure | Bajova Kula | Risan |
|---|---|---|
| Surface | pebble | pebble |
| Entry | moderate | moderate |
| Depth | deepens quickly | deepens quickly |
| Shade | natural | none |
| Character | organised | wild |
| Length | 118 m | 200 m |
| Latest water | Excellent | Excellent |
| Crowd | quiet | quiet |
| Getting there | by road | on foot |
Bold marks a measure where the two differ.
Each in our own words
Bajova Kula
Bajova Kula is a shingle beach below the shore road between Orahovac and Perast, at Dražin Vrt beside the 17th-century tower that gives it its name. The board at the entrance calls it an organised public beach of 118 metres with a named manager, and it looks it: fine grey-blue pebbles, a cut-stone swimming platform with deep water straight off it, a buoyed swimming area, and behind the shore a landscaped timber deck with olive trees and festoon lighting. The seed list places it under Kotor’s walls; the map, the monument register and the board all put it here, 11 km up the coast.
Small, and hemmed in. 118 metres of shingle with the M-1 immediately behind it and no pavement on this stretch, and the water is deep almost at once — this is a swimming beach, not a paddling one. The individual facilities are still unverified: the board’s site map marks them but is not legible in our photograph, so we have not claimed showers, cabins or a lifeguard either way.
Risan
Risan is a swim between two other things: the Roman villa floors with their Hypnos mosaic, and a coffee on the shore road. The bathing is modest — pebble and concrete spots either side of the harbour rather than a beach — but the water at the head of the bay is calm, the mountains stand straight up out of it, and almost nobody else is in. Come in May, June or September, when the mosaics are yours alone.
The bathing spots are small and unmanaged, we hold no water-quality result for Risan, and the two sources we have disagree on the mosaic ticket (€2 or €5) — read the board.