Bar, the southern port between the Adriatic and Lake Skadar

Plenty of people only pass through Bar, and I can see why. It’s where the ferries from Italy dock, where the Belgrade train ends and a town of wide boulevards without an old quarter by the sea. Yet the municipality holds one of the most striking sights on the whole coast, a medieval town in ruins, and an olive tree older than any written record of the place.

Two towns with one name

The Bar tourist board explains that today’s town is new, built in the twentieth century on the plain by the sea once there was no longer any need to live up high for fear of war. The old town is still up there, 4 km from the coast, on a rock at the foot of Mount Rumija. Encyclopaedia Britannica records that around the Mediterranean it was known as Antivari, a name you’ll still see on older maps. The municipality had 45,812 residents in the 2023 census, according to MONSTAT, up from 42,048 in 2011, and covers 504 km² between the Adriatic and Lake Skadar, including 128 km² of lake and 65 km of lakeshore.

What to see in the new town

The seafront path leads to King Nikola’s palace, built in 1885 for his daughter Zorka and son-in-law Petar Karađorđević, with a chapel, a winter garden and a ballroom added in 1910. It now houses the Homeland Museum, with the most important archaeological finds from the area, set in a botanical garden planted in the king’s day. At the railway station stands the Ćiro, the narrow-gauge train that ran between Bar and Virpazar from 1908 to 1959, including the royal family’s saloon car. Along 24 November Boulevard rises St Peter’s co-cathedral, consecrated in 2014, with 36-metre bell towers. Right by the palace is Topolica, the town beach, 500 metres of pebbles running from the marina to the Željeznica river, with King Nikola’s promenade, a children’s park and sports pitches behind it.

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Three faiths within a few hundred metres

The national tourist board holds Bar up as its example of religious coexistence. Near the co-cathedral is the Orthodox church of St Jovan Vladimir, from 2016, funded partly by Catholic and Muslim donors, and on the road up to Stari Bar is the Selimija mosque, from 2014, the largest in the country. On Trinity Sunday a procession with representatives of all three faiths takes the cross of St Jovan Vladimir to the top of Mount Rumija.

The reason to come

The sight that justifies the trip is Stari Bar, the abandoned old town, which the tourist board ranks among the largest walled archaeological sites in the world. Close by stands the town’s emblem, the old olive tree of Mirovica. North of town lie Sutomore, Haj-Nehaj fortress and Čanj; south, Dobra Voda, Utjeha and the coves running down to Ulcinj. Each one gets its own entry in beaches in Bar.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Bar and pick one that fits your day.

Getting there and around

Bar has no airport. Podgorica is 46 km away, about 55 minutes by car, and Tivat 60 km, 1 hour 19, according to Airports of Montenegro, so from the UK you’ll fly into one of those and drive or transfer down. Remember you drive on the right here. From the interior, the train is the easiest option, as Bar is the terminus of the ZPCG line, with ten trains a day to Podgorica for €2.80 in second class and one to Belgrade taking nearly eleven hours. Ferries from Bari are run by Barska plovidba, though its website hadn’t published the 2026 timetable when I checked. The full picture is in trains in Montenegro.

When to go and what to eat

The tourist board boasts around 2,555 hours of sunshine a year and gives a swimming season from mid-May to mid-October. With over a hundred thousand olive trees in the municipality, by the tourist board’s count, the food leans on them and on the lake, with olive oil, pomegranates, citrus, smoked carp, bleak from Skadar and Crmnica vranac wine. In summer the town fills up with the Bar Chronicle, a festival of theatre, exhibitions, readings and concerts, and the promenade hosts a fishermen’s fest and full-moon walking tours. The Meetings Under the Old Olive, a children’s arts festival, have run since 1987. There were no 2027 dates on the tourist board’s site, so I’m not quoting any. To climb Rumija, I’d go in spring, before the July and August heat.

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