Budva Citadel
Fortified point at the tip of Budva's old town, with Venetian walls, Austrian barracks and a library.
The Citadel occupies the seaward point of Budva's walled old town, a position fortified since the Middle Ages and first recorded in documents in 1425. Venetian engineers gave the works their present form from about 1495, adding flanking bastions to command the approach from the water. The Austrian administration inserted a large rectangular barracks block in the 1830s and reorganised the whole as a garrison, so the complex now reads as several layers rather than a single castle.
The earthquake of 1979 badly damaged the fortress along with much of Budva, and what visitors walk through today is largely the reconstruction that followed. Inside the walls are the Austrian barracks ranges, the surviving fragments of the twelfth to fourteenth-century church of Santa Maria in Castello, terraces looking out over the Adriatic and the old town roofs, and an exhibition space. The Citadel also holds a private library of more than five thousand volumes and maps concentrating on Balkan history, which is used for readings and small performances.
Highlights
- Venetian bastions laid out from about 1495 on a medieval site
- Austrian barracks block inserted in the 1830s
- Remains of the church of Santa Maria in Castello
- Library of over 5,000 volumes and maps on Balkan history
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