Tuzi, the Cijevna river and the road to Albania

Tuzi is one of those places hardly any visitor mentions, yet plenty drive through it on the way to the lake or to Albania. For me the reason to stop is water. The Cijevna, called the Cem in Albanian, drops out of the mountains to the Podgorica plain through a narrow canyon of pale rock, and in summer it’s the capital’s beach. The rest, an ancient hill fort, a Roman aqueduct and a cellar under the vineyards, gives you good reason to stay the afternoon.

A young municipality on the border

Tuzi (Tuz in Albanian) had 12,979 residents in the 2023 census, 47 settlements and 242 km², an area MONSTAT marks as provisional until the boundary with the capital is finalised. It’s the least populous of the six municipalities of central Montenegro and recorded 5,631 tourist arrivals in 2024 with 5,756 overnight stays, a little over one night per visitor. Tuzi itself had 2,885 people in the preliminary count.

The local tourist board publishes in Montenegrin, Albanian and English, and its map lists more than 300 points of interest, although the site itself warns that it’s being rebuilt and some details may be incomplete.

The Cijevna, a river for summer

The Tourist Organisation of Podgorica places the canyon about four kilometres from the city centre, narrow enough in places that you could almost jump across. The waterfall next to the Rakić house, known locally as the Niagara, is about ten metres high and so feeble in summer that people swim a few metres from it. The canyon has been a natural monument since 2017.

In summer 2026 the Tuzi tourist board ran its Days of Cemi, with river tubing at Tërgaja on 19 July and a dominoes tournament at Doberčin on 26 July, and kitted out the river beach at Tërgaja with sunloungers, parasols and a children’s area. For walkers it has mapped the Cijevna Canyon Mystics Trail, which follows the remains of an old trade route through the gorge, with thirteen stops between Ljemaja bridge and the villages of Lofka and Priften, past mills, caves and old bridges.

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Illyrians, Romans and an aqueduct

The Samobor hill fort sits beside the road from Tuzi to Božaj. It’s about a twenty-minute climb to the top at 83 metres, and the site is an Illyrian-Hellenistic and Roman settlement from the mid-3rd to the 1st century BC, one of the largest and richest in pottery in the Skadar basin. What intrigues me more is the Roman aqueduct that carried water from the Cijevna to Doclea, the Roman town outside Podgorica. Stretches of the channel cut into solid rock survive at Dinoša and Omerbožaj, 1.35 to 1.40 metres wide and more than a metre high.

Wine, food and the frontier

The Šipčanik wine cellar is in the municipality, in a former military hangar beneath the Ćemovsko Polje vineyards, with guided tastings. For food, the tourist board recommends spit-roast lamb, carp in salt, kačamak, flija, pie baked under the bell and the local cake shops, and in October 2026 it held an evening of wines and brandies from local producers.

Tuzi is also a border town. The Božaj crossing takes you into Albania, and Tuzi railway station appears as a border point on the National Tourism Organisation’s list. I’d visit from Podgorica by car in summer, and if you carry on south, Lake Skadar is close by.

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

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