Gospa od Skrpjela Things to Do

The present Church of Our Lady of the Rocks was built in 1630 on the place of an old chapel built in 1452. The church was enlarged in 1722.

Inside the church you can see the marble shrine with the 15th-century icon of Our Lady of the Rocks by Lovro Dobricevic from Kotor. The shrine was done by Antonio Capelano from Genoa in 1796.

The church also holds 68 magnificent paintings by Tripo Kokolja, a famous 17th-century baroque artist from Perast. The most famous painting, The Death of the Virgin, is 10m long.

On side walls, there are numerous silver plates showing Boka's ships protected by Our Lady during tempests at sea.

Gospa od Skrpjela (church of Our Lady of the Rock), is actually a man-made island that took hundreds of years to complete. It is said that in 1452 an icon was found by fishermen from Perast on a rock in the Bay of Kotor. The icon began performing miracles, and they vowed to build a church dedicated to the icon on the spot it was found.

When sailors would return safely from a voyage, they would drop a rock into the bay. A couple hundred years later, with the help of the sinking of some captured ships loaded with rocks, an island popped up. The church was built in 1630 and the dome was added in 1725.

Inside the church, you can see the famous icon for which it was built and plenty of art by Tripo Kukolja, a famous local baroque artist from the early 1700's.

You can get to the island on a boat from Perast.

just beside the church where you can see many things donated and related to the island. Among them this Jesus in the stone ... There are paintings, old stones etc.

Even one work of one woman who was makeing a embroidery while waiting for her husbant to come back from the sea. She used silk and her own HAIR to do so. It took her arround 20 years to finish it and she got blind after that . You can even see angels hair whiter in some parts as her hair got whiter.

There are two stories about what happened to her , one says her husbant got back when she finished it , the other says she died waiting for him. She make 600 to 700 stitches per square centimeter ( no wonder she got blind ) .

There is world's biggest collectio of this kind of plates . There are arround 3 000 golden and silver plates in this church. Every time a sailor was in trouble at the sea and when parayed to Lady of the Rocks , he wpould order silver or golden plate for the curch and donated it there.

What you can see on pis is the church oltar and the icon of Lady of the Rocks which those two sailors found on the rock . Originaly it had silver over it , but it is removed and now it is on the wall left of the icon.

Current Church was built in 1632 and enlarged in 1722.

You ll pay 50 euro cents to get inside of the church and museum just beside the church. You ll have a guide who will tell you the stry about the island and church history.

or Lady of the Rocks is a little island near Perast in Kotor- Risan Bay .

The story says that two sailors were saved on a small rock and they have found the icon of Virgin Marry there, so thankfull for their life they decided to make an island there and build a church. So it took 200 years to make an artificial isnad and first original church was built in 1452.