Travel and Tourism in Montenegro

Durmitor National Park

The drive from the coast to Durmitor is a journey of four hours and four centuries. The landscape changes progressively as you move inland: the Mediterranean scrub gives way to oak woodland, the oak to beech forest, the beech to the alpine meadows and conifer forests of the high Dinaric mountains. The road passes through Nikši?, Montenegro's second city and home of the famous Nikši?ko beer brewery, then climbs steadily through increasingly dramatic scenery toward Žabljak, the highest town in the Balkans at 1,450 meters elevation. Žabljak itself is a modest, practical mountain town whose hotels and restaurants serve primarily as a base for exploring the park rather than as attractions in themselves. It is the landscape surrounding the town that is magnificent.

Durmitor National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, extended in 2005, recognized for its glacial landforms, its lake system, its extraordinary primeval forest, and its dramatic canyon. The park covers 390 square kilometers of the Durmitor massif, a high mountain plateau carved by glaciers into a landscape of cirques, ridges, and valleys that contain 48 glacial lakes. These lakes, known as mountain eyes or gorske o?i, vary in size from small tarns to the relatively substantial Black Lake, and in season they reflect the surrounding mountains with a clarity that makes them seem like holes into another sky.

Black Lake, the Crno Jezero, is the most accessible and most visited of the Durmitor lakes, a short walk from Žabljak through ancient black pine forest. The lake is actually two connected bodies of water, a large and a small lake joined by a short channel, and in summer the forested slopes of the Meded peak are reflected so perfectly in the still water that a photograph taken from the right angle shows no distinction between the real mountain and its reflection. The forest around the lake contains Bosnian pines of exceptional age and size, their silver-grey bark and spreading crowns giving the landscape a quality of antiquity that is entirely genuine: some of these trees have stood for more than three centuries. Walking the perimeter trail around the lake takes about two hours at a relaxed pace and is one of the finest easy walks in Montenegro.

For more serious hikers, the Durmitor massif offers routes of genuine challenge. The highest peak, Bobotov Kuk, at 2,523 meters, can be reached in a long day's hike from Žabljak and requires reasonable fitness and mountain experience, particularly if the summit is to be attempted in variable weather. The high ridges of the park offer views that encompass most of Montenegro on clear days, along with the mountains of Bosnia, Serbia, and Albania. In summer, the high meadows are brilliant with alpine flowers, and the brown bears, wolves, golden eagles, lynx, and chamois that inhabit the park are sometimes visible to patient observers. In winter, the ski area at Žabljak attracts Montenegro's skiing community, though the facilities remain modest by Alpine standards. The ski season typically runs from December through March, with reliable snow at altitude even in mild years.

Biogradska Gora National Park

Eastern Montenegro, on the way to the Serbian border, contains one of the most significant ecological treasures in Europe. Biogradska Gora National Park, established in 1952, protects one of only three remaining primary temperate rainforest areas in all of Europe, a tract of virgin forest that has never been logged or significantly disturbed by human activity. Walking into this forest, which covers approximately 16 square kilometers at the park's core, is a genuinely unusual experience for the European traveler: trees of enormous age and size, fallen trunks decomposing into the forest floor and supporting entire ecosystems of moss, fern, and fungus, the particular quality of light that filters through a multi-story forest canopy, and a silence interrupted only by birdsong and the sound of the stream running through the valley.

At the center of the national park, Biogradsko Lake glimmers in its forest bowl. The lake is small by Montenegrin standards, roughly 222 hectares, but the combination of its emerald water and the old-growth forest that surrounds it creates a scene of wild beauty that has made it the most photographed inland location in Montenegro after the Black Lake at Durmitor. In autumn, the display of color in the forest is extraordinary, the beeches turning to gold and copper against the dark green of the evergreens. Brown bears are present in the park, and their tracks are occasionally visible near the lake in early morning.

The park is located near the town of Kolašin, which serves as the main base for winter skiing on Mount Bjelasica as well as summer hiking in the national parks of the eastern mountains. Kolašin has a small but comfortable infrastructure of hotels and restaurants and is less touristed than either the coast or Durmitor, making it a good choice for visitors seeking a quieter experience of Montenegro's mountain interior.

Outdoor Activities

Montenegro has awakened to its potential as an adventure sports destination in recent years, and the infrastructure for outdoor activities has developed rapidly to match the country's extraordinary natural assets. The result is a country where a single week's itinerary can encompass white-water rafting in a canyon deeper than the Alps, sea kayaking in a UNESCO World Heritage bay, canyon hiking through vertical limestone gorges, and mountain biking on trails that descend from alpine peaks to the sea.

Rafting on the Tara River is the signature outdoor experience of northern Montenegro and one of the genuinely unmissable adventure activities in Europe. The standard multi-day rafting trip puts in near the ?ur?evi?a Tara Bridge and runs downstream through the canyon for 21 kilometers on the most dramatic section, spending nights in riverside camps where the canyon walls frame the stars above. The rapids on this section are mostly Class III with some Class IV stretches, manageable for fit adults with no prior rafting experience when guided by the professional outfitters based in Žabljak. The water temperature is the most consistent shock to first-timers: even in August, the Tara runs at around 12-15 degrees Celsius, and falling in, as some inevitably do, provides an emphatic wake-up call. The scenery throughout the journey is extraordinary, the canyon walls rising in some places so steeply and so high that the river receives direct sunlight only for a few hours around midday.

Sea kayaking in the Bay of Kotor has developed into one of the most popular water-based activities on the Montenegrin coast. Guided day trips from Kotor or Perast allow paddlers to explore the bay at water level, approaching the medieval villages and island churches from the sea as the fishermen and traders of past centuries approached them. Sunset kayaking tours, which combine the physical pleasure of paddling with the extraordinary light that falls on the limestone mountains as the sun drops behind them, have become particularly popular. More ambitious multi-day kayaking expeditions can circumnavigate the entire bay, camping at small beaches that are inaccessible by land.

Canyoning has found its perfect terrain in Montenegro's limestone landscape. The Mrtvica Canyon, accessible from the main road between Nikši? and Kolašin, is one of the more accessible options: the Mrtvica River has carved a narrow gorge through the limestone that requires wading, swimming, and occasional scrambling, with the vertical walls rising above and the cool water providing relief on hot summer days. The Nevidio Canyon near Šavnik is considerably more demanding, a slot canyon of extreme narrowness in some sections that requires ropes, wetsuits, and experienced guidance. Nevidio is considered one of the most exciting canyoning experiences in Europe precisely because of its combination of difficulty, beauty, and inaccessibility.

Rock climbing on Montenegro's limestone offers routes for all levels. The cliffs of the Bay of Kotor, particularly the walls above Dobrota and the crags accessible from the road between Kotor and Cetinje, have been equipped with bolted sport climbing routes in the past decade. The Tara Canyon walls, in their upper reaches, offer traditional climbing of a more serious character. The Prokletije in the south offer adventure climbing in a remote and uncommercial environment.

Hiking in Durmitor, Lov?en, Prokletije, and Biogradska Gora ranges from gentle forest walks to demanding Alpine ascents, and the trail infrastructure has improved considerably with investment from EU pre-accession funds. The Via Dinarica, a long-distance trail running through the Dinaric Alps from Slovenia to Albania, passes through Montenegro's northern mountains and has opened the country to a new audience of multi-day trekkers seeking something beyond standard circuit hikes. Mountain biking has established itself particularly strongly around Lake Skadar and in the Bjelasica mountains near Kolašin, where trails descend through spectacular scenery from the high ridgelines to the valley floors.

Paragliding from the mountains above Kotor Bay, particularly from the launch sites on the plateau above Cetinje, provides an aerial perspective on the bay that no photograph from the ground can match. Schools and tandem operators based in the Kotor area offer flights for beginners, and experienced pilots can fly cross-country routes that take in the entire coast.

Scuba diving in the Adriatic off the Montenegrin coast is rewarded with rocky reefs, underwater caves, and several shipwrecks from both world wars that have become established dive sites. The waters off Herceg Novi are particularly noted for their clarity and for the diversity of marine life sheltering in the rocky underwater landscape of the bay mouth. Kitesurfing is possible at Buljarica beach south of Petrovac, where the geometry of the bay creates reliable wind conditions, and at several spots on the open coast.

For winter sports enthusiasts, Žabljak's ski area in Durmitor offers modest skiing in a magnificent mountain setting. The resort has a handful of lifts and runs, with the highest points accessible only by the main gondola, and the facilities are far removed from the groomed perfection of major Alpine resorts. But the snow quality is excellent, the crowds are minimal, and the surrounding landscape of the Durmitor massif is extraordinary in winter. Kolašin, which has a larger and better-equipped ski area on Mount Bjelasica, is the alternative for visitors who prefer more developed infrastructure.