Kanli Kula Fortress
Ottoman hilltop fortress above Herceg Novi, rebuilt in 1966 as an open-air theatre and festival stage.
Kanli Kula, the Bloody Tower, is the largest of the fortifications above the old town of Herceg Novi. It was raised by the Ottomans in 1539, on ground held earlier by Bosnian and Venetian rulers, and was extended by the Venetians after they took the town in 1687. Its cistern later served as a prison, and drawings of ships scratched into the walls by inmates survive as a record of that period.
The interior was cleared and restored in 1966 and fitted with a stepped auditorium, turning the walls into an open-air theatre seating well over a thousand. It has since been the main stage of the town's summer programme, including film festivals, opera and guitar events, with the Adriatic and the Bay of Kotor as a backdrop. Outside performance times the ramparts and terraces are open as an ordinary visitor attraction.
Highlights
- Open-air auditorium built inside sixteenth-century Ottoman walls
- Ship drawings scratched by prisoners in the former cistern
- Ramparts looking out over Herceg Novi and the Adriatic
- Principal stage of the town's summer festival season
