Guide · Mamula

Mamula island and its round fortress

On the way to the Blue Cave every boat slows beside a low round fort on a rock at the mouth of the bay. Mamula island has been a guard post, a prison camp and a hotel. Here is its story.

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Editorial team, blue-cave-montenegro.comUpdated October 25, 2026about 6 min to read36 sources

The tour that goes with it Kotor: Blue Cave, Submarine Base & Lady of the Rocks 4.9 (4,443 reviews) 3 hoursOptional 30-minute swimKotor departure from$53per person Check availabilityFree cancellation up to 24 hrs before

Mamula in brief

01Where: On Lastavica island, 3.4 nautical miles from Herceg Novi.¹
02Built: By the Austrian general Lazar Mamula, in the mid-19th century.²
03War years: An Italian internment camp from 1942 to 1943.³
04Today: A 5-star hotel since 2023, on a 49-year lease.⁴ ⁵
05On the tour: The booked boat passes it for about 5 minutes.

A round fort guarding the gate of the bay

Ships entering the Bay of Kotor pass between Cape Oštra on the left and the island of Lastavica, better known as Mamula, on the right.⁶ The fort sits right at the entrance, a ring of stone filling a small rocky island.⁷ For anyone arriving by sea it was the first thing to see and the first thing that could see them.

The fortress is circular, about 200 m in diameter, and stands 3.4 nautical miles from Herceg Novi.¹ The municipality calls it one of the largest and best preserved Austrian fortifications on the Adriatic.¹ Its entrance faces north-east, over a drawbridge that once crossed a fairly wide moat; on the other sides the shore drops steep and inaccessible.⁸

Mamula never stood alone. Three 19th-century Austro-Hungarian fortresses, Arza, Mamula and Prevlaka, guard the point where the bay meets the open sea.⁹ Arza stands on its cape on Luštica, one nautical mile east of Mamula, and was built around 1850 to strengthen the defence of the bay entrance.¹⁰ From the boat you can often pick out both.

Mamula through time

From fort to camp to hotel

1850s

The fort is built

General Lazar Mamula builds it at the bay entrance.¹¹
March 1942

The camp opens

Italian authorities use it for internment.³
14 Sep 1943

The camp closes

After Italy's capitulation.¹²
2015

A 49-year lease

Signed on 23 February with a Swiss developer.⁵
2017

The memorandum

Signed on 10 June, starting the lease.¹³
2023

Hotel opens

Approved to operate on 25 May; 5-star from 15 June.⁴

The bay behind the fort

To see why anyone would fortify a rock this small, look at what lies behind it. The Bay of Kotor covers 87.3 square kilometres, has 105.7 km of coastline and reaches a depth of 68 m at its deepest.¹⁴ ¹⁵ It runs about 24 km into the land, a long sheltered harbour that every power on this coast wanted to hold.¹⁶

The outer part, the bay of Herceg Novi, has a steep and rocky northern shore and is 45 m deep at most.¹⁷ Deeper inside, the narrows of Verige are only about 350 metres wide, and tradition ties their name to 1624, when North African pirates sailed into the bay and ravaged Perast.¹⁸ ¹⁹

On the boat you notice the change as you pass Mamula. Behind you lies the long, enclosed bay; ahead lies the open Adriatic, and somewhere along the cliffs to the left the mouth of the Blue Cave. It is the moment to hold on, put the phone away and enjoy the last stretch of the ride.

Time beside the fort

How long tours stay at Mamula

min

Minutes at Mamula as each listing gives them; all of them view the fortress from the boat.

Boats past Mamula

A quick look or a proper photo stop

Kotor: Blue Cave, Submarine Base, and Lady of the Rocks Tour

Most reviewed

Booked speedboat

From Kotor

Length: 3 hrs
At Mamula: 5 min
Cave swim: 30 min
Price: from $53

See this tour

Kotor: Blue Cave, Submarine Base, Mamula, Perast & swim time

Photo stop

Perast & Mamula loop

From Kotor

Length: 3 hrs
At Mamula: 10 min
Cave swim: 25 min
Price: from $52

See this tour

Tivat: 2h Blue Cave & War Tunnels & Mamula Island & Open Sea

Shortest

Tunnels, Mamula & cave

From Donja Lastva

Length: 2 hrs
At Mamula: 10 min
At the cave: 30 min
Price: from $45

See this tour

Decision helper

How close do you want to get?

Mamula fits several kinds of day

I just want to see it I want time for photos I am based in Tivat I want to stay inside the walls I care about the history

The booked speedboat

It passes the fort for about 5 minutes.

A 10-minute stop

One Kotor loop stops 10 minutes.

The 2-hour boat

It also stops 10 minutes.

The hotel

It opened as a 5-star hotel in 2023.⁴

Ask the guide on board

The camp held more than 1,500 people.²⁰

In the period from March 1942 to September 1943, Mamula was used as a collection camp for the internment of patriots, communists and fighters of the people's liberation movement against the Italian authorities, from the Bay of Kotor and the region.

Municipality of Herceg Novi (Opština Herceg Novi)Source 3

General Mamula and the age of the forts

The fort takes its name from its builder, the Austrian general and governor of Dalmatia Lazar Mamula, who built it in the middle of the 19th century.² A press item republished by the national tourism organisation calls it one of three defensive fortifications he built in the 1850s.¹¹ No official page we found gives a single exact year, so treat any precise date you read elsewhere with care.

Mamula belongs to a whole family of works from the same period. Arza on Luštica dates from around 1850 too, and Prevlaka completes the trio at the point where the bay meets the open sea.¹⁰ ⁹ Seen together on the map below, the three forts show how carefully the entrance to the bay was watched.

From the deck, look for the thick, low walls, the few openings and the moat on the north-east side by the old drawbridge.⁸ From a distance the island looks almost flat, and its scale only shows as the boat comes close and the curve of the wall fills your view.

Map

From Kotor to the Blue Cave on Luštica

The mouth of the bay with the cave, Mamula and Žanjic; the inner bay from Kotor past Perast to Tivat; and the coast from Herceg Novi down to Budva.

Map of the Luštica peninsula and the entrance to the Bay of Kotor with the Blue Cave on the south coast, Mamula island, Žanjic beach, Cape Arza, a former submarine pen and the village of Rose — The mouth of the bay

Map of the inner Bay of Kotor with Kotor, Perast and the islet of Our Lady of the Rocks, the ferry landing at Lepetane, Donja Lastva and Tivat Airport — Kotor, Perast and Tivat

Map of the Montenegrin coast from Herceg Novi past the Blue Cave, Tivat and Kotor to Budva — Herceg Novi to Budva

1
Blue Cave
About 5.6 nautical miles from Herceg Novi, under a cliff about 30 m high.²¹ ²²
In Google Maps ↗
2
Mamula
A round fortress about 200 m across, 3.4 nautical miles from Herceg Novi.¹
In Google Maps ↗
3
Žanjic
A white-pebble beach over 300 m long, sheltered by Cape Arza.²³
In Google Maps ↗
4
Arza
An Austro-Hungarian fort from around 1850, one nautical mile east of Mamula.¹⁰
In Google Maps ↗
5
Submarine pen
One of the tunnels the Yugoslav navy cut into the hills of the bay.²⁴
In Google Maps ↗
6
Rose
A small fishing village 1.7 nautical miles from Herceg Novi.²⁵
In Google Maps ↗
7
Kotor
The port lies 100 m from the Old Town.²⁶
In Google Maps ↗
8
Perast
Its golden era ran from 1420 to 1797, under Venice.²⁷
In Google Maps ↗
9
Our Lady of the Rocks
A man-made islet; its birthday is kept on 22 July 1452.²⁸
In Google Maps ↗
10
Lepetane
The ferry from Kamenari lands here after crossing the Verige strait.¹⁸
In Google Maps ↗
11
Donja Lastva
Opatovo Pier, the start of a 2-hour Blue Cave run.
In Google Maps ↗
12
Tivat Airport
12 minutes and 8 km by car from Kotor.²⁹
In Google Maps ↗
13
Herceg Novi
Its fortress Kanli Kula was built in 1539.³⁰
In Google Maps ↗
14
Tivat
The airport is 4 km from the town centre.³¹
In Google Maps ↗
15
Budva
20 km from Tivat Airport.³²
In Google Maps ↗

Open the map in Google Maps

Checklist

For the pass at Mamula

Be ready

Camera out before the boat slows
Sunglasses for the glare off the water
A seat on the side facing the island

Remember

Boats view the fort from the water
The camp is part of local family history
Rough seas can change the route

Cost calculator

Mamula and the cave for your group

Starting totals for boats that pass Mamula.

Booked speedboat3 hoursfrom $53 Perast & Mamula loop3 hoursfrom $52 From Donja Lastva2 hoursfrom $45

People 2

Total from$105

each from $53

Check availabilityfree cancellation

A total here is the lowest per-person starting price on GetYourGuide times the size of your group, converted with the European Central Bank's daily reference rate; the date and option you pick set the final amount.

Video

Mamula Island from the Water and the Air

The YouTube player stays off until you press play.

The camp of 1942 and 1943

The darkest years came during the Second World War. From March 1942 to September 1943, Mamula was used by the Italian authorities as an internment camp for patriots, communists and partisan fighters from the Bay of Kotor and the region, including Dubrovnik, Korčula, Sarajevo, Mostar and Trebinje.³

After 18 months, with more than 1,500 people having passed through the camp, the last prisoners left in mid-September 1943.²⁰ The camp, Campo Mamula, was closed on 14 September 1943, after Italy's capitulation, and the Municipality of Herceg Novi still marks the anniversary of its dissolution.¹²

Higher figures appear on some travel websites; this page sticks to the municipality's own count. When your guide tells the story on board, remember that for families around this bay it is not a legend but recent history.

From ruin to a hotel inside the walls

The fortress began a new life with a long-term lease of Lastavica island and Mamula fortress, concluded on 23 February 2015 between the Government of Montenegro and a Swiss developer, for 49 years from the signing of a memorandum on preconditions.⁵ That memorandum was signed on 10 June 2017, and the leased island has an area of 31,848 square metres.¹³

The plan was to rebuild the fortress, under conservation conditions, into a 5-star museum-like hotel with 34 rooms, 4 places to eat and drink, a memorial room open to visitors, a dock and a pool.³³ The hotel received temporary approval to operate on 25 May 2023 and was categorised as 5-star on 15 June 2023.⁴ The hotel itself now says it has 32 rooms and suites.³⁴

Hotel guests reach it from Mirišta on Luštica: the hotel says Tivat airport is 22 km away, about 50 minutes by car to the boat pick-up, followed by a 5-minute crossing.³⁵ For everyone else, Mamula is a view from the water on the way to the Blue Cave.

How the boat tours pass Mamula

On the booked tour Mamula is a pass-by of about 5 minutes, after the submarine tunnel and before the final 10-minute run to the Blue Cave. The skipper slows down, the guide tells the story, and the boat moves on. Have your camera ready before the boat slows, because it does not wait.

Other boats give it a little more time. A Kotor loop with a longer Perast stop lists Mamula as a 10-minute photo stop. The 2-hour speedboat from Opatovo Pier in Donja Lastva also gives it 10 minutes. A shorter boat from the Saint Roko dock passes it in about 3 minutes on the way out.

None of the listings compared here mentions landing on the island; you see the fortress from the boat. Sit on the side of the boat that faces the island as you approach, and keep shooting as it turns, because the outline changes quickly from round to long.

Mamula from the shore, and on a map

You can also see Mamula without a boat. It sits off the tip of Luštica, close to the beaches of Žanjic and Mirišta; Žanjic lies about 2.7 nautical miles from Herceg Novi, so the fort is a familiar outline for anyone swimming there.²³ The cove of Mirište, between Žanjic and Cape Arza, is where the hotel's own boats pick up guests.³⁶ ³⁵

The map below shows the mouth of the bay: Mamula on its island, Arza on the cape, Žanjic beach and the Blue Cave around the corner on the open sea. It makes clear why every Blue Cave boat that starts inside the bay passes the fort: the cave lies just beyond it.

If you have a spare evening in Herceg Novi, look across the water at sunset. The fortress sits low on the horizon at the mouth of the bay, and knowing what it has been makes the silhouette feel heavier than its size.

Into the blue