Stari Bar
Walled medieval town below Rumija, abandoned after 1878 and now an open-air archaeological site.
Stari Bar stands on a rocky terrace about four kilometres inland from the modern town, under the slopes of Rumija. A settlement is documented here from the tenth century, and the town passed in turn to Byzantine, Serbian, Venetian and Ottoman rule, each leaving buildings inside the four hectares enclosed by the walls. Venetian government from 1443 gave the town its bastioned defences and much of its civic architecture, while the Ottoman period after 1571 added bathhouses, a mosque and the aqueduct that carried water to the town.
An explosion in a gunpowder store during the Montenegrin capture of the town in 1878 destroyed much of the built fabric, and the surviving population moved down to the coast, leaving the old town as a ruin field. It is now maintained as an open-air site and is on Montenegro's UNESCO tentative list. Visitors follow lanes past the citadel, the remains of the Cathedral of Saint George, the fifteenth-century episcopal palace, a Turkish bath and the clock tower; the former archbishops' house holds an archaeological display of pottery found on the site.
Highlights
- Some four hectares of walled medieval town, largely ruined since 1878
- Remains of the Cathedral of Saint George and other churches
- Fifteenth-century episcopal palace and Ottoman bathhouse
- Archaeological display of local pottery in the archbishops' house
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