The fishing village that owns the view of Kotor — three kilometres of shore, fifty stone berths, and the body of a fisherman Rome calls blessed.
Muo er en stille fiskerby som ligger langs vestbredden direkte motsatt Kotor, så nær at du kan sitte over kaffe i nesten stillhet og se cruise-folkemengdene som fyller Old Town-murene og St John's Fortress på den andre siden av vannet. Vannkanten er en aktiv linje av tradisjonelle steinhus stablet opp langs åsiden, små båter, og fiskenett hengt opp til tørking på jernkroker, en uhastig, genuint lokal scene som har endret seg lite gjennom generasjoner. Den beskjedne Church of St Nicholas preger vannkanten, med klokketårnet reflektert i den stille morgenbukten.
The bay by size
Residents by settlement, 2023 census
The walled town in every photograph of the bay has 562 residents on the 2023 count. The fishing village looking straight at it has 578 — more people than the Old Town.
MONSTAT 2023 census, settlement level
Who is still here
Population change by settlement, 2003 to 2023
Every settlement on this shore lost people in twenty years; Muo lost one in seven. The walled town lost most of all — the 2023 count draws its boundary tighter than 2003 did, so treat that bar as a caution, not a collapse.
MONSTAT censuses 2003 and 2023, settlement level
Hvem besøker Montenegro
Andel av utenlandske gjesters overnattinger, 2025
MONSTAT · 2025
Hva ting koster i Muo
Espresso
€1.00–1.80
Middag for tokonoba on the riva, the day’s catch, with wine
€30–45
Fatøl
€2.50–3.50
To solsenger + parasollthere is no beach and nothing to rent — you swim off the stone
€0
Village prices, summer 2026. Nothing in Muo charges admission: the swimming, the lane and the view are free.
Hvem bor her
Folketellinger, Muo kommune
Down a seventh in twenty years: 677 people in 2003, 578 in 2023. Fishing built every house on this lane — the villagers paid for their church with a percentage of what the catch sold for — and the rooms above the mula fill in July instead: in the summer months the head count at least doubles.
A fisherman, and the sea he left
Muo is recorded in the ninth century, and by the 1260s the villagers had a parish church of their own, two hundred metres uphill from the water. The oldest document naming the place in the Kotor archive is a notarial deed of 1326, for the sale of a vineyard. What the village is known for happened later, and to one man. Widths are to scale.
Kotor Diocese parish history; Historical Archive of Kotor holdings on Muo.
A day on the far bank
The crowds are across the water, not on this lane
08:00swim off a mulo; the walls opposite are still backlit
12:00the cruise ships are berthed across the water and none of it reaches this lane
18:00Vrmac cuts the day short here — the walls opposite hold the light longer
21:00the Old Town lights up across the water and the view costs nothing
1810
I mellomtiden, i 1810
The year the fisherman came home
Venice,10 January 1810: Pavao Krilović of Muo — Brother Gracija to the Augustinians — had been dead three hundred years. He fished here, shipped out as a sailor, heard a friar preach in Venice in the summer of 1468, and never went back to sea.
Muo —Antun Janković, a seafarer from the village, arranged the passage of the body across the Adriatic. It was laid in the old church of Sts Cosmas and Damian, two hundred metres up the slope from the houses.
The village —these were French years on the bay. Under the administration of 1807–1813 Muo held a municipality of its own, and stayed one until 1941; a report by its own municipal head counted 490 people here in 1824.
Today —he lies in a silver sarcophagus in the church the village built by the water in 1864, patron of fishermen, sailors and workers. Leo XIII approved his cult in June 1889; Muo keeps his day on 9 November.
Stemmer
“This custom, once known in other places of the diocese, has survived unbroken to our own day only in Muo — a place proud of its fishing tradition.”
Boka News, on the blessing of the sea
Reported at the parish of Our Lady Help of Christians, where on Pentecost the congregation walks down to the riva and the parish priest dips a wooden crucifix in the sea three times.
“A silver votive in the shape of a palamida, given to the church straight after the Muljani netted a catch of palamida unheard of until then.”
Share Montenegro, “Sav taj bokeljski soul”
A nineteenth-century thank-offering, and the village’s own monument to fishing; palamida is reckoned to match tuna for the quality of its meat.
Sammenlign alle hoteller i Muo
Søk blant tusenvis av hoteller og leiligheter med oppdaterte priser.
Muo ligger rett over vannet fra Kotor, på vestbredden innerst i bukta. Det er om lag 2 km til gamlebyen langs veien rundt buktbunnen, og hele landsbyen vender mot Kotors bymurer og fjellet bak dem.
Hvordan er Muo?
En enkelt rekke steinhus langs sjøen, de fleste med egne trapper ned i vannet, og nesten ingen gjennomgangstrafikk. Det er en fiskerlandsby som aldri ble feriested, og den forblir et bosted selv i august.
Er Muo et bra sted å bo?
Det er blant de beste valgene rundt Kotor: stille, billigere enn gamlebyen, tjuefem minutter å gå og med den beste utsikten til Kotor som finnes — bymurene opplyst om natten, tvers over vannet, fra din egen dør.
Kan man bade i Muo?
Ja, fra betongkaiene og trappene langs fronten, ikke fra en strand. Vannet er dypt og rent, og lokalbefolkningen bader her hele sommeren. Det finnes ingen fasiliteter, noe som er en del av grunnen til at det holder seg stille.
Hvor spiser man i Muo?
På en håndfull familiedrevne konobaer langs sjøkanten, stort sett fiskebaserte og rimeligere enn tilsvarende innenfor Kotors murer. I sesongen lønner det seg å bestille bord; flere har bare noen få bord på kaia.
Hva finnes i nærheten?
Prčanj er en kort tur videre langs stranden, Kotor ligger rett over, og veien opp til Lovćen starter på den andre siden av bukta. Båter kan leies lokalt for turen ut til Perast og Vår Frue av klippene.
Har Muo flyplass?
Nei — den nærmeste er Tivat lufthavn (TIV), 10 km unna langs vei.
Hvor varmt er sjøen i Muo?
Fra rundt 13 °C i februar til 25 °C i august. Den holder seg over 22 °C fra juni til september — badesesongen. Regionale normaler fra stasjonen Bar, ikke en måling for byen selv.
Hvor langt er det fra Muo til Kotor?
2,1 km langs vei, omtrent 4 min med bil.
Er Muo trygt?
Det britiske utenriksdepartementet (FCDO) fraråder ikke reiser til Montenegro; rådene ble sist gjennomgått 13. august 2026. Det er deres vurdering av landet som helhet, ikke vår og ingen dom over Muo — les den selv før du reiser. Nødnummeret i Montenegro er 112.
Muo gjennom året
maiOur Lady Help of Christians, and the blessing of the sea — 24 May: the patronal feast, with the image of Our Lady carried along the main street and the riva. The blessing of boats and nets follows on Pentecost — the only parish in the diocese where the rite never lapsed
sepSts Cosmas and Damian — 26 September: the titular feast of the old church up the slope, consecrated in the 1260s
novBlessed Gracija’s day — 9 November: the village’s own feast, sung in the church that holds his sarcophagus
Den lokale tallerkenen
Frigani guljoči — fried rock fish
Guljoči come out of the stone shelters along the shore: dark, slippery, ugly on the slab and first-class in the pan. Older Muljani still bait from the mula late at night and pull the hooks in at dawn, and their wives fry them. No restaurant in the village puts them on a menu.
Hvor A Muo kitchen, if you are lucky enough to be invited into one. The konobas on the riva grill the day’s catch instead.
