Bus from BUDVA to ROVINJ

Budva is a Montenegrin town on the Adriatic Sea, it has around 37,000 inhabitants, and it is the centre of Budva Municipality. The coastal area around Budva, called the Budva riviera, is the center of Montenegrin tourism, known for its well-preserved medieval walled city, sandy beaches and diverse nightlife. Budva is 2,500 years old, which makes it one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic coast.

The Old Town of Budva is situated on a rocky peninsula, on the southern end of Budva field. Archaeological evidence suggests that Illyrian settlement was formed on the site of the Old Town before Greek colonization of the Adriatic. While the site was permanently settled since Roman era, most of existing city walls and buildings were erected during the Venetian rule.

The entire town is encircled with defensive stone walls. The fortifications of Budva are typical of the Medieval walled cities of the Adriatic, complete with towers, embrasures, fortified city gates and a citadel.

The layout of the town is roughly orthogonal, although many streets deviate from the grid, resulting in somewhat irregular pattern, with many piazzas connected with narrow streets. Today, the entire city within the walls is pedestrian-only.

The town citadel is situated on the southern tip of the city. Originally known as Castle of St Mary, fortification was continually rebuilt and expanded through Middle Ages, reaching its final form during the Austro-Hungarian rule. The sea-facing 160m long ramparts of the citadel, complete with eastern and western towers, are intricately connected to the rest of the city walls. Austrian stone barracks form the most prominent structure within the castle, separating the citadel from the rest of the walled city. Ruins of the Santa Maria de Castello church, after which the entire complex was originally named, are located within the citadel.

A large public square is located to the north of the citadel, containing all of the churches of the old town - St. Ivan church (17th century), Santa Maria in Punta (840 AD), and The Holy Trinity church (1804).

Tourism is the main driver of the economy of Budva. It is a significant tourist destination on the eastern Adriatic, and by far the most popular destination in Montenegro.

Budva is well known regionally as the capital of nightlife of the eastern Adriatic. The first discothèques in Budva started to emerge during the 1980s, as hotel-attached dance clubs. However, the clubbing scene mushroomed in 1990s, with numerous open-air clubs opening along the Budva sea promenade. This trend continued into the 2000s, with Old Town and its promenade hosting a large number of bars, pubs and restaurants, and two big clubs, Top Hill and Trocadero, dominating the clubbing scene.

The Budva Riviera has some of the most attractive beaches of south Adriatic, and the most pleasant climate in Montenegro. Mogren beach is arguably the best known and most attractive of the Budva city beaches, nested beneath the cliffs of the Spas hill, between cape Mogren and the Avala hotel. The beach is separated from the city by the slopes of Spas hill that plunge to the sea, and is only accessible by a 250m long narrow path along the cliffs. Other city beaches include the small Ričardova glava ("Richard's Head") and Pizana beaches, next to the Old Town, as well as the 1.6 km (1.0 mi) long Slovenska plaža (Slav beach), that makes up the most of the city's coast.

However, majority of the beaches of Budva Riviera are outside of the city itself. Jaz Beach is a long and spacious beach west of Budva, its hinterland serving as a popular concert and festival venue, as well as a campground. Bečići resort town, with its long sandy beach, is situated south-east of the city, separated from Budva by the Zavala peninsula.

Further to the south, numerous small beaches and towns, make up the more high end and exclusive part of Budva Riviera. This is especially true for the famous Sveti Stefan town, but also for other smaller Paštrovići settlements in the area, that once were unassuming fishing villages. The area of Sveti Stefan and Pržno, including Miločer resort with its park and secluded beaches, is considered the most exclusive area of the Montenegrin coast.

The town of Petrovac and the undeveloped Buljarica field occupy the very south of the Budva municipality.

Sveti Nikola Island is located opposite of Old Town, 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) across the Budva bay. It is a mostly undeveloped island with some beautiful beaches. Well connected to the mainland with water bus, it is a popular excursion site for tourists visiting Budva.

Rovinj is a coastal Istria’s city and its famous attraction. Primarily a fishing port, or to be precise, the last true Mediterranean fishing port, Today Rovinj is overrun by tourists thanks to the abilities of its citizens to benefit from their natural resources. Rovinj manages to keep up with the modern times in a very interesting way, by combining its rich tradition with the new trends.

The Old Town, contained within an egg-shaped peninsula  and surrounded by luscious forests, is criss-crossed with steep cobbled streets and piazzas. The 14 islands of the Rovinj archipelago are a pleasant destionation for an afternoon away,; the most popular are Saint Catherine and Crveni Otok (Red Island). About 1.5km south is the Punta Corrente Forest Park and the wooded Golden Cape, with its age-old oak and pine trees and several large hotels.

Church of St Euphemia : Theproud ot the town, this imposing church dominates the old town from its hilltop location in the middle of the peninsula. Built in 1736, it’s the largest baroque building in Istria, reflecting the period during the 18th century when Rovinj was its most populated town. Inside,the church visitors can marvel at the marble tomb of St Euphemia behind the right-hand altar. Modelled on the belfry of St Mark’s in Venice, the 60m bell tower is topped by a copper statue of St Euphemia, which shows the direction of the wind by turning on a spindle.

 

Batana House is a museum dedicated to the batana, a flat-bottomed fishing boat that stands as a symbol of Rovinj’s seafaring and fishing traditions. The multimedia exhibitions inside the 17th-century town house have interactive displays, excellent captions and audio with bitinada, which are typical fishers’ songs. 

The elaborate Balbi Arch was built in 1679 on the location of the former town gate. The top of the arch is ornamented with a Turkish head on the outside and a Venetian head on the inside.

Grisia: Lined with galleries where local artists sell their work, this cobbled street leads uphill from behind the Balbi Arch to St Euphemia. The winding narrow backstreets that spread around Grisia are like a maze where tourists like to lose themselves among windows, balconies, portals and squares which embody a buffling, but pleasant to the eye mixture of styles – Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicism. A special attention should be paid to the unique fumaioli (exterior chimneys), built during the population boom when entire families lived in a single room with a fireplace.

Known as one of the most picturesque and romantic towns on Mediterranean, over the last few decades Rovinj attracts a large number of tourists. Most of them faithfully return year after year due to the unique combination of the breath of past times felt as you walk around old town's cobbled narrow streets, with its  22 islands and islets, the mild Mediterranean climate, carefully designed parks, the tidiness of its streets, the friendliness of the local population or numerous and varied town events.