Petrovac, the quiet village at the south end of the Budva Riviera

Petrovac is the Budva Riviera turned down low. A small village with a seafront promenade, a beach of reddish sand and two islets offshore, without Bečići’s big hotels or the noise of central Budva. To me it’s the best spot on this stretch for anyone who wants beach and not much else, and it has more history than first appears.

The beach and the islets

The Budva tourist board describes a 600-metre beach of reddish sand covering 9,525 m², with a promenade that effectively serves as the village’s front door onto the sea. Along it you’ll find houses with rooms and apartments, hotels, cafés and restaurants. Offshore, a few hundred metres out, are the islets of Katič and Sveta Nedjelja, and the water between them and the beach is a protected nature reserve. It also appears on the national tourist board’s roll of Montenegro’s most popular beaches. I compare it with the others in beaches in Budva.

The Kastio and the old name

Above today’s jetty, the Venetians built a fort in the sixteenth century, with a permanent garrison and warehouses for wine and other goods shipped out by sea. The village took the name Kastel Lastva from it, though people called it the Kastio. Alongside it they built the lazaretto, a quarantine house for the sick during epidemics. Only the walls survive, but the site has come back to life with a restaurant, a café and a club, and in early September it becomes the stage for the jazz festival.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Petrovac for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

Roman mosaics and Crvena komuna

At Mirišta, a late Roman mosaic turned up in 1902, followed later by a second, both from the floor of a building from the third or fourth century. One shows three fish sharing a single head; the other, a rectangle of twelve panels. The tourist board admits the dig isn’t finished and the site isn’t properly protected. The village also has the Crvena komuna cultural centre, with the Marko Gregović gallery, a library founded in the late nineteenth century with over 15,000 books and a museum on the communist election victory of 1920.

Lučice and Buljarica

Five hundred metres south, between two headlands of cypress and pine, is Lučice, a cove of golden sand with shallow water and my favourite beach round here. Two kilometres on, towards Bar, is Buljarica, the longest beach on the riviera at 2,250 metres, next to the Buljaričko polje wetland and Gradište monastery.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Petrovac on GetYourGuide.

Festivals and getting there

Petrovačka noć on 21 August 2026 filled the promenade with sport, music and free tastings, ending with a concert by Marija Šerifović. In October the villagers hold Petrovačka lignjada, the squid festival, which in 2025 fell on the 19th. Sixteen buses a day leave Budva for Petrovac, the first at 06:10, calling at Sveti Stefan and Reževići on the way. To see where Petrovac fits on the coast, look at the Budva Riviera.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Petrovac for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.