Podgorica, the capital you can get to grips with in a day

Podgorica has a poor reputation among travellers, and I think it’s unfair, even if I can see where it comes from. There’s no walled old town like Kotor’s and no bay out front, and the July heat in the valley is fierce. But it’s the capital and the biggest city, with 179,505 people in the municipality at the 2023 census, and it’s the most practical base for the whole of the centre. Give it one well-planned afternoon and it makes a lot of sense.

A city between two rivers

The National Tourism Organisation puts the city at 44.5 metres above sea level, at the northern edge of the Zeta plain, with its historic core where the Ribnica flows into the Morača. That little delta is where it all started, and it’s still where locals go to swim and picnic. Right at the mouth there’s a single-arch stone bridge, only a few metres high, that the Tourist Organisation of Podgorica considers the oldest in the city and believes to be Roman. Locals call the spot Sastavci or Skaline, and it’s where I’d wait for the sunset.

The Morača is the city’s river. It rises in the north, cuts the canyon that leads up to Kolašin and, once joined by the Zeta, crosses the plain to Lake Skadar. MONSTAT gives it a length of 99.5 km.

Ottoman, Orthodox and Roman

Stara Varoš was the heart of Podgorica in the Ottoman period, from 1474 to 1879. Its landmark is the Sahat kula, the 18th-century clock tower, one of the few Ottoman buildings to survive the Second World War, according to the National Tourism Organisation. Next door is the Čubranović house of 1630, which became the first seat of local government after the Ottomans left in January 1879.

Across the river rises the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, begun in 1993 and finished twenty years later, with two 26.7-metre towers and 17 bells. Four kilometres from the centre, between the Širijana, the Zeta and the Morača, lie the ruins of Doclea, a 1st-century Roman town. The National Tourism Organisation points out that Podgorica has Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim and Jewish places of worship you can visit, and in Stara Varoš the Osmanagić and Skender Čauš mosques are only a few steps apart.

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Museums, parks and a pink palace

For a rainy or scorching day there’s a decent set of museums in Podgorica. My favourite is the Titograd ’80s Museum, a city-centre flat furnished as an eighties home, because it tells the story of the recent city better than any glass case. The Risto Stijović Gallery is in the sculptor’s birthplace in Stara Varoš, and Kuslev’s House, built in the 1920s, is one of the few that came through the 1944 bombing.

In Kruševac Park, by the Morača, stands the Petrović Palace, a residence of the royal dynasty built in 1891, with its pink façade and the Centre for Contemporary Art inside. The other green lung is Gorica hill, which gives the city its name, with pine woods, trails, an adventure park and the Partisan memorial.

Eating, drinking and sleeping

Nightlife centres on Bokeška Street, lined with bars and cafés, and in winter the Podgorica holiday market livens up the centre. For Montenegrin food, the tourist board singles out places like Pod Volat, on the clock tower square, and Lanterna, in a house dating from 1630. I’ve pulled them together in my guide to Podgorica restaurants.

Hotels range from the Hilton near the centre to small places in the pedestrian zone, sorted by area in hotels in Podgorica. If you book a private flat, remember the 24-hour registration of foreign visitors. In Podgorica it’s done at the tourist office at Ulica slobode 47.

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Day trips

The best of Podgorica is within an hour. Lake Skadar is 19 km away, Cetinje 30 km and Ostrog towards Nikšić. The Cijevna waterfalls, nicknamed Niagara, are a few kilometres out, and in the same direction is Ćemovsko polje, the single-plot vineyard the National Tourism Organisation calls Europe’s largest, with the Šipčanik cellar underground. Heading north, Kolašin is 65 km away through the Morača canyon. If you fly into Podgorica rather than Tivat, these are the trips worth doing before you head for the coast.

When to go

The National Tourism Organisation recommends Podgorica in any season. I’d avoid walking about at midday in July and August. In 2024 July averaged 30.9 °C and the thermometer reached 41.1 °C, while January averaged 7.8 °C without a single day of snow. Spring and autumn are ideal, and in winter the city is a good alternative to a deserted coast.