Mamula island guide: the 19th-century Austro-Hungarian fortress at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor, its wartime history and how to see it by boat from Herceg Novi.
Mamula — properly Lastavica island — is a circular Austro-Hungarian fortress built in 1853 to guard the entrance to the Bay of Kotor, named after the general who ordered it.
During the Second World War Italian occupying forces used it as a prison camp; the island stood abandoned for decades afterwards and has since been redeveloped as a hotel, a decision that remains locally contested.
The fortress was designed with 26 cannon positions covering the strait. Its use as a camp between 1942 and 1943, where prisoners from the surrounding villages were held and some died, is the reason many locals still object to its commercial use. Guides from Herceg Novi tell this part properly.
Almost every Blue Cave boat tour passes Mamula and slows for photographs. The submarine tunnels at Žanjice and Rose village on Luštica are on the same route.
Take a Blue Cave or bay-entrance boat tour from Herceg Novi, Kotor or Tivat; most include Mamula, the submarine tunnels and a swim at Žanjice.
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The island is now a hotel. Boat tours pass close and stop for photographs; landing generally requires being a guest or booking at its restaurant.
An Austro-Hungarian fortress from 1853, later used by Italian occupying forces as a prison camp in 1942–43, then abandoned until its recent redevelopment.
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