Coast guide · about 1 hour from Podgorica by train
Montenegro’s deep south: the ruined city of Stari Bar and its aqueduct, a 2,000-year-old olive tree, King Nikola’s palace by the sea, the Ćiro train, Haj-Nehaj and the old town of Ulcinj.
Montenegro feature
A medieval city among ancient olive trees, a king’s palace by the sea and a pirate town at the southern end of the coast.
Ride the train along Lake Skadar to Bar, explore Stari Bar in the morning and end the day in Ulcinj.
Read the full back story below, then plan your trip.
The back story
Montenegro’s deep south: the ruined medieval city of Stari Bar among its olive trees, a 2,000-year-old olive tree, a king’s seaside palace and the pirate town of Ulcinj.
Among the olive groves
The ruined medieval city on a rock massif 4 km inland, one of the largest walled archaeological sites in the world, among ancient olive trees.
Over 2,000 years old
The symbol of Bar: an olive tree at Mirovica that the tourist board calls the oldest in Europe, protected since 1963.
Built in 1885
A seaside palace King Nikola built in 1885 for Princess Zorka, now the Homeland Museum in a botanical garden.
17 arches
A 17th-century Ottoman aqueduct of 17 arches on the north side of Stari Bar.
Bar–Virpazar line
The narrow-gauge Ćiro locomotives and King Nikola’s salon car, preserved at Bar station in memory of the Bar–Virpazar railway (1908–1959).
At 225 m above the sea
The ruins of a 15th-century Venetian fortress on a hill above the sea near Sutomore, about 10 km from Bar.
A pirate base from 1571
Montenegro’s southernmost old town, on a headland above the sea, a pirate base from 1571 linked by legend with Cervantes.
At the gate of Stari Bar
A hotel in the old bazaar below the walls of Stari Bar, listed by the Tourist Organisation of Bar.
Train or road
Local trains run from Podgorica to Bar via Virpazar and Sutomore along the edge of Lake Skadar; by road, the Sozina tunnel makes Bar about an hour away.
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