Discover the Mountains of Montenegro with a Cicerone guidebook - Introduction

‘Ljepši od Alpa’ – ‘more beautiful than the Alps’. This description of Montenegro’s mountains was given to me by a Croatian climber, in the most congenial setting of a wedding, just over the Slovenian border. And it was these words, together with a postcard of improbably sheer-sided peaks in Durmitor, the country’s best-known mountain area, which first drew me to Montenegro, while living in Zagreb between 1999 and 2001.

Montenegro (or more correctly Crna gora, ‘black mountain’) lies on the southern Adriatic coast, sandwiched between Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia and Albania; and within its borders are some of the wildest, most spectacular, and least visited mountains in Europe.

So I wrote in the introduction to the first edition of this guide, back in 2006. And remarkably, with the exception of Durmitor National Park which in recent years has seen a healthy surge in visitor numbers, the last part of that sentence remains just as true now, as I write material for a new edition in 2014, as it did then. It’s true that Montenegro’s popularity as a travel destination has grown enormously over the past few years – new guidebooks have appeared, low-cost direct flights to Podgorica have been launched from the UK, luxurious new hotels and marinas have sprung up. However, while Budva, Kotor, Sv Stefan and other hotspots on the coast heave with sun-seekers and receive a regular stream of cruise ships, much of the rest of the country – and in particular its mountains – remains little visited.

Most of the surface area of the country is taken up by the Dinaric Alps – a great string of mountains, extending in furrowed ranges from Slovenia and Croatia in the north, and reaching their greatest altitude in inland Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia. Rising in some places almost sheer from the Adriatic, these mountains throw themselves up in soaring, jagged limestone tops, and have alternately been compared to strings of pearls, and to the entrance to hell itself. The fierce, rugged character of the Montenegrin highlands is reflected in the name of the mountains running along the northern part of the Albanian border: Prokletije, meaning ‘the accursed mountains’. Yet the landscape is also rich in wildlife and plants, from the diverse birdlife of Skadarso jezero to the primeval forest of Biogradska gora.

The mountains of Montenegro are at their most impressive in the inland areas of Durmitor and Prokletije, where the stunning terrain typically consists of glacial cirques surrounded by fine ridges – often wonderfully exposed – and steep-sided 2000–2500m peaks, some of which require a degree of scrambling to ascend. High pastures, often scattered with stone or wooden shepherd’s huts (known locally as katun), give way to valleys, the lower slopes of which are cloaked in dense pine and beech forest, and picturesque lakes. Between these mountain areas, the landscape is slashed by deep canyons – one of which, the Tara, is the second deepest in the world.

Like the mountains of neighbouring Croatia, Slovenia and other countries of the former Yugoslavia, the mountains of Montenegro are criss-crossed by well-established, clearly marked trails. There are some mountain huts and shelters, although considerably fewer than in Croatia or Slovenia (many of the walks in this guide require carrying a tent), and detailed maps are available for many of the most popular hiking areas.

Montenegro is easily reached from the UK – either a direct flight to Podgorica, or via Dubrovnik – and costs within the country are relatively low. Added to these already considerable attractions are the country’s many other, perhaps better-known assets – a beautiful coastline, fascinating history and some impressive architecture. The proximity of Croatia and its own lovely coast and mountains might be added as a further lure…

It is hoped that this guidebook – at the time of writing the second edition, still the only comprehensive English-language guide available to the mountains of Montenegro – will enable more people to visit this remarkable area, and shed some light on what is, quite simply, one of the finest walking destinations in Europe.