Hotels near Maritime Museum of Montenegro

Housed in the early-18th-century baroque Grgurin Palace, the Maritime Museum of Montenegro (Pomorski muzej Crne Gore) is the best place in Kotor to understand how the Bay of Kotor became one of the most important shipping centres in the eastern Adriatic. The collection traces three centuries of local seafaring, from the Bokeljska Mornarica (Boka Navy) guild - one of the oldest sailors' guilds in Europe - through the Venetian merchant captains and on to Austro-Hungarian naval rule.

Highlights include scaled wooden ship models, original portolan charts, ceremonial swords and uniforms, paintings of long-vanished schooners, and the medals and gifts brought home by sea captains from Istanbul, Trieste, and St Petersburg. The English-language audio guide is genuinely useful and turns a half-hour walk-through into a 90-minute deep dive. Tickets cost around 4 EUR.

Pro Tip: Pair the museum with a coffee in the small courtyard cafe next door. The Grgurin Palace's first-floor windows give one of the cleanest frame-shots back into Arms Square - bring a camera.