On to Montenegro...

Stari Bar

Watercolour sketch

©2014 Charlene Brown

On June 1, we traveled through Montenegro to Croatia, stopping at two spectacular and historic cities. The first was Stari Bar (meaning old Bar) an ancient city with a violent history.

Originally Byzantine, the town came under Serbian rule in 1054, later was in a brief union with Venice until taken back by Serbia, and was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire in 1571. The Montenegrins eventually got rid of the Ottomans by blowing up their own aqueduct in 1878, but then had to abandon the city when the re-built aqueduct was destroyed in an earthquake in 1979.

The new town of Bar was built and is flourishing far below on the coast, and restoration of Stari Bar has begun.