Adriatic Coast
We asked the Deputy Director of Montenegro's National Tourism Organisation for her top tips.
We asked the Deputy Director of Montenegro's National Tourism Organisation for her top tips.
Wedged between brooding mountains and a moody corner of the bay, this dramatically beautiful town is perfectly at one with its setting.
The twin hills on Vranjina island are nicknamed Sofia Loren by the locals for reasons that become apparent when they’re viewed from afar.
Heading north from Podgorica it doesn’t take long before the scenery becomes breathtaking.
Despite being on the doorstep of two national parks, Mojkovac (pronounced ‘moy·ko·vahts’) doesn't have a lot to offer tourists – at least not yet.
Nestled within the Bjelasica mountain range, this pretty national park has as its heart 1600 hectares of virgin woodland – one of Europe’s last three remaining primeval forests.
Montenegro’s fourth-largest city, Bijelo Polje (pronounced ‘bi·ye·lo po·lye’) was once part of the evocatively named Sandžak of Novi Pazar, the Ottoman-controlled region that separated Montenegro from Serbia until 1912.
The Prokletije mountains are a large expanse of wilderness forming the border with Albania and Kosovo.
On the approach to Plav, in the last village before the lake, Brezojevica Monastery is a study in rural tranquillity.
It’s difficult to understand why Plav has such a shabby, frontier-town feel when Gusinje (pronounced ‘gu·si·nye’), 10km further towards nowhere, is such a tidy and laid-back place.
Resting in a cliff face 900m above the Zeta valley, the gleaming white Ostrog Monastery (Manastir Ostrog) is the most important site in Montenegro for Orthodox Christians, attracting up to a million visitors annually.
Montenegro’s second-biggest city isn’t high on most tourists’ must-see lists and neither should it be.
Directly behind Kotor is Mt Lovćen (1749m, pronounced ‘lov·chen’), the black mountain that gave Crna Gora (Montenegro) its name (crna/negro means ‘black’, gora/monte means ‘mountain’ in Montenegrin and Italian respectively).
For a brief time in the 15th century, between the fall of Skadar (now Shkodra in Albania) and the founding of Cetinje, this was the capital of Zetan ruler Ivan Crnojević.
Although only 33km as the crow flies, there’s a border and a whole heap of mountains between Rožaje and Plav, necessitating an 83km drive through Berane and Andrijevica.
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