Kolašin, the mountain town that works all year round

If Budva is the capital of Montenegro’s beach scene, Kolašin plays the same role in the mountains, only at a gentler pace. MONSTAT recorded 51,488 tourist arrivals here in 2024, more than in any other northern municipality, and it’s easy to see why. There’s a railway station, a newish motorway from Podgorica, two linked ski areas, a national park with primeval forest twenty minutes up the road and one of the country’s great monasteries to the south. For me it’s the simplest mountain base in Montenegro.

An Ottoman town on the Tara

The national tourist board puts the town at 954 metres, on the Tara’s right bank, and Kolašin’s own tourist board fills in the past. People lived here from the Bronze Age, but the municipality’s only town was built by the Ottomans in the mid-17th century on a village of the same name, and according to a chronicle kept at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Pljevlja its fortifications date from 1651. It was a military post on the road between Bijelo Polje and Podgorica and, later, a livestock market.

Two 20th-century episodes stand out. Kolašin’s brigade fought at the battle of Mojkovac in 1916, and from November 1943 to August 1944 the town was Montenegro’s wartime capital, where the anti-fascist council known as ZAVNO was set up in 1943. You can still see the Ottoman powder magazine on Vinić hill, a memorial to students killed in the First World War and St Demetrius’ Church, built in 1888.

Skiing in winter, hiking in summer

Winter is the busy season. The two ski areas, Kolašin 1600 and Kolašin 1450, have roughly 45 km of runs between them, joined by the K7 chairlift, and there’s a daily bus from the town centre. In 2024 the local weather station logged 71 days of lying snow, according to MONSTAT.

In summer the crowd changes. Biogradska Gora National Park, with its glacial lake and 1,600 hectares of primeval forest, is 22 km away on the Mojkovac road. Bjelasica has more glacial lakes, among them Pešića and Ursulovačko, the latter at 1,895 metres, and to the south-east rise the Komovi, with three summits above 2,400 metres.

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

The Morača and its gorges

South of town, the road to Podgorica follows the Morača valley down. Twenty-five kilometres along is Morača Monastery, founded in 1252, and further on the Morača Canyon. The tourist board also lists the Mrtvica, a tributary that it says cuts down to around 1,250 metres, plus smaller gorges for canyoning. The Bogutovo stream, for instance, involves ten abseils and takes four to five hours.

By coach, if you don’t drive

As well as the train, the coach works well. On an autumn Wednesday, 21-10-2026, the ticket site busticket4.me listed twelve departures from Podgorica to Kolašin, between 07:20 and 18:00, taking an hour to an hour and three quarters for €6 to €8. Many carry on towards Berane, Plav or Bijelo Polje, so the town also works as a stopover on the way to the Lim valley. What the coach won’t do is get you to the slopes, Lake Biograd or the katuns, and for those I’d use a car or the ski areas’ shuttle. MONSTAT records 139,418 overnight stays in Kolašin in 2024, nearly three nights per visitor, which tells me people come here to stay a few days rather than pass through. In winter that changes the maths too, because with the train in the morning and a coach back in the evening you can manage a ski weekend without hiring a car.

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

The town, the food and when to go

In town, the botanical garden, founded in 1981, packs more than 400 species from Bjelasica, Sinjajevina, Komovi and Durmitor into 646 m², and the national parks body runs an education centre here focused mainly on bears. On the food front, the national tourist board picks out the layered lisnati cheese, which has protected status, and the parks body adds kajmak, lamb slow-cooked under a metal bell, kačamak and cicvara.

Kolašin works in any season. In 2024 January averaged 0.6°C and July 20.4°C, and the national tourist board pitches it for skiing and summer alike. There’s a full range of places to stay, from rural houses to a five-star hotel, in the guide to hotels in Kolašin.

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