Podgorica: the back story

About Podgorica: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Podgorica Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Podgorica does not shout about its past, but it has plenty of it. Two thousand years of history lie scattered between its rivers, from Roman ruins to an Ottoman clock tower and a cathedral finished in 2013.

Doclea

Just north of today’s city, where the Zeta meets the Morača, the Romans built Doclea, the main town of the region, in the 1st century AD. Its forum, basilicas and baths lie in open fields today, and you can walk among them in near solitude.

Ribnica and Podgorica

In the Middle Ages a town called Ribnica grew where the little Ribnica river flows into the Morača. By the 14th century the name Podgorica, “below Gorica”, the wooded hill to the north, had taken over.

Five rivers, two thousand years, and a city that has reinvented itself more than once.

The Ottoman town

In 1474 the Ottomans built a fortress at the meeting of the rivers, and for four centuries Podgorica was an Ottoman trading town. Its old quarter, Stara Varoš, still has a clock tower, mosques and narrow lanes. In 1878 the town became part of the Principality of Montenegro, and a new grid of streets, Nova Varoš, was laid out across the Ribnica.

Titograd

Podgorica was heavily bombed in the Second World War and largely rebuilt afterwards. From 1946 it was the capital of Montenegro within Yugoslavia, under the name Titograd, and it grew into a city of boulevards and modern blocks. It took back the name Podgorica in 1992.

The capital

Since Montenegro’s independence in 2006, Podgorica has been the capital of a new state. The Millennium Bridge, opened in 2005, the Cathedral of the Resurrection, consecrated in 2013, and the modern district of City Kvart show a city still growing, with mountains on every horizon and the sea an hour away.

Our advice: walk from the clock tower in Stara Varoš to the old bridge over the Ribnica and the ruins of the fortress, cross the Morača on the Millennium Bridge to the cathedral, and take a taxi to Doclea for an hour among the Roman stones.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Podgorica: the back story before you go.