From Old Town you can walk through Fort Mare, which looks like it could crumble any moment
Past Bastion Citadel, the remains of the city’s southern fortress, which actually did crumble. In 1979 a massive earthquake brought it down and the remains sit in the sea now.
From there you reach Pet Danica Walkway, a 6km seaside promenade built on the old railway tracks, named after five women resistance fighters, all called Danica, who died in World War Two. We walked along here several times especially once we discovered a beautiful cafe, more about that later.
One thing we saw a lot in Herceg Novi was half-built buildings, rebar sticking out of rooftops, skeletal floors, shells of hotels with weeds growing through. It looks post-apocalyptic but there are a few reasons why. Families build in stages, ground floor one tourist season, live in it while saving for the next, add a floor when the kids get married, leave the rebar up in case there’s another floor someday. Others are caught in legal limbo: post-Yugoslav privatisation left plenty of prime real estate in the hands of companies that went bankrupt and took decades to untangle. And then there are the pre-WWII ownership claims, original owners filing for their land back, which freezes all construction the moment papers are filed. Some cases drag on for twenty years! We also saw (not just in Herceg Novi) what looks like completed buildings that no one maintained and now they’re abandoned. And then, just ancient buildings.
Walking in the other direction takes you to Igalo Beach, about 45 minutes along the coast, the whole way feeling like the 1980s, the signage, kids out playing unsupervised, people saying “dobro dan” as they pass, every single restaurant offering the exact same menu of pizza, pasta, burgers, crepes, seafood (most closed for winter) We did find a vegetarian café that also sold sourdough bread! Hooray!
The coffee at Coffee Novi was the best we’d had anywhere, made by a Russian, which our later host in Bečići explained was no coincidence. “The Russians brought the good coffee and food here,” she told us. The salted caramel latte in particular. We went returned there and to its sister cafe a few times.
But the real find was Baguetteria, at the far end of the walkway in Meljine. Not a pizza, burger or octopus on the menu. I had avo on sourdough with rocket and vinaigrette. We had perfect cappuccinos. Then it started absolutely pouring with rain so we waited for it to ease, during which a table of three women got up and walked out on a free dessert the kitchen had sent over (something about being unhappy the kitchen was closing). Their loss. I caught the waiter’s eye: “If no one’s going to eat that, we will.” He shrugged. “Sure.” Crispy brioche, soft and fluffy inside, ice cream, caramel sauce, toasted hazelnuts. The chef came out and said “I hope you come again.” Sean said “Oh, we will!” and of course, we did.
The rain stopped the moment we finished eating. We walked back via Savina Monastery.
A note about plastics. In Montenegro and Croatia, you can’t open a bag of chips or cereal or whatever without it tearing all the way down. To meet 2026 European environmental standards, packaging here has undergone a massive shift. Bags used to be made of multiple layers of different plastics and foils bonded together. These were strong and tore in a straight line, but they were impossible to recycle. New bags use just one type of thinner highly recycled plastic which is more brittle. While better for the planet, they lack that “directional strength,” meaning once a tear starts, it zippers uncontrollably in any direction.
On the other hand while New Zealand has banned single use plastic bags, in the Balkans, we still see plastic bags offered in the produce section and at the checkout.
Next stop Bečići (still Montenegro)
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