Dubrovnik & Montenegro in 2.5 days?

Arguably the top sight in Montenegro is the Bay of Kotor. It is gorgeous. If you drive yourself around that bay, you will have to keep your eyes on the road except at pull-off spots (which I assume exist, but I don't know for sure). For me that would be a good reason not to make it a DIY drive. Others who've actually driven that road (I took a bus) may have a different perspective. On the way to Kotor you'd pass through or very near Herceg-Novi and Perast.

Inland from Kotor, via an exceptionally zigzaggy road, is the historic capital of Cetinje, which has a very different look from Kotor and Dubrovnik.

Lovcen National Park isn't too far from Cetinje; It is said to be beautiful. There's no public transportation to the park as far as I know, so that would be a good use of a rental car. Even after looking at a map I'm not sure how one would approach it by car.

We are not tour folks either, but we do "tours" when they make sense.

We took an Atlas one day tour out of Dubrovnik and felt it was a perfect way to see Kotor and Perast without the hassle of driving.

It is STUNNING!!

Skip a car rental.

Just thinking outside your box a bit.

It’s about a 40 minute (plus border crossing) drive from the airport to Herceg Novi in Montenegro and nearly 30 minutes to Dubrovnik. Barely further. You could spend 2 nights in Herceg Novi (Sat. & Sun.) giving you one full day to see more along the coast toward Perast and Kotor. Stay however long you want on Monday before driving back to Dubrovnik for one night, giving you at minimum an evening and a morning in Dubrovnik.

There are roads up into Lovcen - a scenic one and a good one (these are not the same). But with just one day, I wouldn’t attempt that.

I like that idea a lot.

Thank you all - I'm going to explore your suggestions today!

The road between Kotar and Cetinje was mentioned above. Yes, the views of the Bay of Kotor are spectacular, but not if you have a problem with heights or are prone to motion sickness. We took the P1 road from Kotar to the towns of Njegusi and Cetinje. It goes up (or down) the side of a mountain and has about 25 numbered 180 degree switchback turns and probably 75 other sharp turns. There's a rock wall on one side and nothing on the other. But, large tour buses do travel this road. Although it's probably a rare occurrenc, we saw several folks throwing up on the side of the road. You can go to bing.com, use the map feature, and see aerial views of the road. Googlemaps.com. will also allow you to check it out. On 12 Mar. 2017 there was a thread on this forum titled "Greece Montenegro Croatia". One person included a link to a good map that shows the road. Another person had a link to a video made along parts of the road. Just food for thought so you wont inadvertently find yourself in a bad situation.

TC - thanks for that advice! I did that on a mountain road in Norway last year; I didn't get sick but was scared the whole way down. I'll do some googling!

The road TC is referencing is the 25-switchback road from Kotor to Lovcen. Absolutely gorgeous scenery! I drove much of Montenegro, mountains in Greece, but I would not drive that road. But you don’t really have a lot of time for that anyway. You may need to go back. Lol!

I'll be in Montenegro myself later this year, and I stumbled on the website of Museums Kotor a couple of days ago. That organization manages five historic sites/churches/museums in the area. Others heading in that direction, including Gin, might like to take a look. It doesn't sound as if any of the places would be terribly time-consuming to visit. The most significant one seems to be the museum in Perast, where many people like to stop, anyway. And there's a Roman-era villa with floor mosaics right in Risan, along the coast not far north of Perast.

www.muzejikotor.me/oju-muzeji-kotor/

You'll need to right-click to change the language to English. Web pages dedicated to the individual sites can be accessed via the nearly invisible menu icon at the upper right. All are closed on Monday.