Budva Old Town, from the Citadel to Santa Maria in Punta

You can walk round Budva Old Town in an hour, but it has enough layers for a whole afternoon. It’s a small walled peninsula with the Citadel at one end, the gate onto Slovenska plaža at the other and, in between, narrow lanes of shops, galleries, bars and six churches. Much of what you see has been rebuilt, and knowing that changes how you read the place.

A town that has been rebuilt more than once

The local tourist board counts it among the Adriatic’s oldest towns, already called a “city of Illyria” in ancient sources and known at other times as Butua or Buthos. Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Venetians, Austrians and the French all held it at some point, and two earthquakes left their mark. The one in 1667 brought down the walls and towers, which went up again on the old foundations. The 1979 quake damaged the town once more, and restoration took most of the following decade. So I wouldn’t come looking for untouched medieval stone, but for the shape of a medieval town that has survived.

The walls were already standing in the ninth century, because one wall of the Benedictine monastery of 840, now Santa Maria in Punta, doubled as the sea defence. The oldest known drawing of Budva, from the sixteenth century, shows six towers, two of them tall and one round.

The Citadel and the view

The fortress on the south side, the old Kaštel, is the highest point and where the walls start and finish. It first appears in records in 1425 and was for a time the seat of the Metropolitan of Zeta. A nineteenth-century rebuild swept away the little church of Santa Maria de Castello and brought in a garrison. Today it’s privately owned, with a museum and a bar, and the national tourist board singles out its view over the town, Sveti Nikola island and the Sveti Stefan peninsula, as well as the carved fish that have become Budva’s emblem. Everything outside the walls is in my Budva.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Budva before prices climb.

Six churches in a few lanes

St John’s is the one you spot from afar, with its 1867 bell tower. It was the cathedral until the diocese was abolished in 1828 and holds the icon known as the Madonna in Punta, long believed to protect the town from plague and pirates. Behind the altar is a 40 m² Murano glass mosaic by the Croatian painter Ivo Dulčić, and next to the church are the remains of an early Christian basilica. Santa Maria in Punta, from 840, is used for exhibitions and classical concerts, while Holy Trinity, Orthodox and finished in 1804, has an iconostasis by Greek painters and the grave of the writer Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša outside.

The museum and the necropolis

If you only go into one place, make it the City Museum. It occupies an early nineteenth-century building and holds more than 1,200 archaeological pieces spanning the fifth century BC to the Middle Ages, plus 450 folk objects and a lapidarium. The highlight is the Hellenistic gold from the necropolis found while digging the foundations of the Avala hotel, 450 graves in all, including earrings showing an eagle carrying a boy in its talons, linked to the myth of Zeus and Ganymede. It recently gained a second-century Roman mosaic too. For the country’s other museums, see museums in Montenegro.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Budva Old Town and choose by the reviews.

Swimming under the walls

One of the pleasures here is that you can swim without leaving the old town. Pizana, 50 metres of pebbles, lies below the Repeno tower with the island straight ahead. Ričardova glava backs onto the wall and takes its name from Richard Widmark, who shot The Long Ships in Budva; it’s quiet in the morning and becomes the young crowd’s beach in the afternoon, with music from the bars. For sand, leave by the south gate for Mogren Beach.

When to go in, and where to eat

The Grad teatar festival has turned the old town into a stage every summer since 1987, with plays, concerts and exhibitions, and it’s the best excuse to have dinner inside the walls. On weekdays outside July and August, first thing in the morning, you’ll have it almost to yourself. The official listings don’t give opening hours or prices for the churches or the museum, so check at the door. For dinner inside or just outside the walls, see my notes on restaurants in Budva.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Budva before prices climb.