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The ruins of Stari Bar

Our final morning in Montenegro (already!?), we packed our bag and were glad to leave the dingy and increasingly humid cave apartment, which had been letting water seeping in through one of the walls after nearly an entire day (and night) of rain. It was barely 8am but the right time to catch a bus to Bar, where we would take another bus at 1.30pm to get to Dubrovnik. It also meant we had a few hours to kill, and Stari Bar seemed like a good option.

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Bar derived and shortened its name from the word Antibari(um), given its location just opposing the Italian town of Bari across the Adriatic Sea. There are regular sea crossings between Bari and Bar for anyone wishing to hop between Italy and Montenegro! The port/coastal side of Bar is newer, built and favoured following destructions of an important aqueduct that used to feed into the Stari Bar, or the Old Bar. Unlike most towns where the newer parts are built surrounding the historic centre, Stari Bar and modern Bar sit a good 5-6 kilometres apart, the former at the foot of Mount Rumija and the latter by the seafront.

In order to save some time and money, we teamed up with a fellow traveller at the bus station to share a taxi to Stari Bar. The taxi driver actually tried to treat us as separate parties to charge €5 each but we refused to pay more than a combined sum of that amount. He accepted without much qualm actually. (A bit cheeky there, don’t you think?) After that, there remained a small sum to pay to enter and visit the ruins of Stari Bar, and asking for a map will incur another small supplement. On any other day, I would shrug both ticketing and map fees as normal, but after the taxi incident, psychologically, that map fee felt like a rip-off. “Shouldn’t a brochure with a map be included with the entry ticket?”, I launched at poor F who clearly wouldn’t have an answer.

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

You would have guessed correctly that I didn’t buy a map from the ticket counter. However, one of the first buildings we came across would be the former custom house of this town, where a historical map, along with notation of significant buildings within the fortified walls, were on display. While walking, there were also signed arrows that marked the paths and directions to fully see Stari Bar. A photo of the historical map and the arrows helped us navigate our visit very well indeed!

For such a small town, we counted at least five to six ruins of churches, as well as a small functioning church – actually called Little Church – where visitors were encouraged to light a candle. Together with the stronghold towers, city gates, gun powder room (where we took shelter from the rain for a good 20 minutes…), Prince’s Palace and Bishop’s Palace, one can imagine the impressive town that it used to be. Streets lined with walls of former dwellings only reinforce the magnitude of importance it was to not just nobility and clerics but to the commoners too.

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

Stari Bar

What highly amused me was the long row of souvenir shops and cafés lining the street immediately adjacent to the exit of Stari Bar, and it went on for a good distance before reaching a large carpark for visitors. There is also a small tourist information centre along this street, with very eager and helpful staff but young and rather inexperienced too that they gave us some wrong information. We also ran into our fellow kayakers from Lake Skadar and stopped to exchange a little news, before we had to leg it back to the main bus station so we wouldn’t miss our scheduled departure back to Croatia.

All in all, we managed to do and to see tons of stuff while we were in Montenegro. Even then, we have a few more places we’d like to visit, such as Cetinje and Tara Canyon, but sadly ran out of time for this trip. Another intriguing and interesting thing to do could be to travel on the Montenegro Express that runs from Bar to Belgrade, touted one of the most scenic rail routes in Europe. I think this won’t be our only trip to the region ;)

Stari Bar: full photoset on Flickr

 

All posts in this series:
Montengro: Postcards: Herceg Novi | Flickr Photoset
Montengro: The medieval town of Kotor | Flickr Photoset
Montengro: Up, up, to St John’s Fortress | Flickr Photoset
Montengro: Postcards: Perast
Montengro: Kayaking the Boka Kotorska
Montengro: Kayaking in Lake Skadar
Montengro: In search of the Walnut Valley
Montengro: The ruins of Stari Bar | Flickr Photoset



Category: Europe, Montenegro, Travel

Tagged: , , , ,

6 scribbles & notes

  1. Chloé says:

    Héhé, it’s funny that we got the same general idea of Montenegro on our independant trips: we must go back to see more of it :)
    Ooooooh, scenic rail route, I’m in :P

  2. medca says:

    Looks like Europe version of Great Wall ;) niceeeeee

    • Lil says:

      Meh, this is just a small walled town, not like the kilometers and kilometers of walls. I still need to see the GW sometimes, although goodness knows when that’s going to happen…

  3. medca says:

    Hehehehe…oh yes, definitely got to visit the GW one day!

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