We spoke to a number of people in Perast from whom we sought to find out who had once owned the deserted and already almost totally ruined palaces, for we had read nothing about them. The people we spoke to merely laughed at our questions and turned their backs on us and ran away A few kilometers down the road, in Risan, we heard that there were no more normal people living in Perast; the city had been given over to quite a large number of lunatics who could do as they liked there and were supplied with food by the state once a week.