Mount Lovcen - Montenegro. National Park and Mount Lovcen, Montenegro

Auto route for 1 day, what to see:

Mount Lovcen

10.00-20.00 seven days a week
Ticket price to Lovcen Park: 2€ per person
Entrance to Njegos Mausoleum: 3€ per person
Coordinates: 42.399962, 18.837589

Mount Lovcen National Park and the Njegos Mausoleum located there are one of the main attractions of Montenegro, depicted on all advertising posters. Located just 50 km from Budva.

We park the car and go up the stairs.

It's cold on the mountain. I knew it would be cool, but I didn't expect it to be this cold. In June it was +13C.

At this altitude it is cold even in the heat of summer, so it is better to take a jacket, wear pants and closed shoes.

To the right of the tunnel I notice a dilapidated old road. Let's go along it. The wind miraculously subsides. Through 5 minutes We find ourselves near the mausoleum.

Mausoleum of Njegos

Mausoleum of Njegos

Mount Lovcen has two peaks: Shtirovnik(1.749 m) and Jezerski vrh(1.657 m). Most of the photos of the national park were taken at the top of Jezerski vrh - this is where the Njegos Mausoleum.

Petr Njegosh was the greatest poet, and at the same time the ruler of Montenegro in the mid-19th century. Before his death, Njegos bequeathed to be buried in a small chapel on Mount Jezarski vrh.

Communist authorities in Montenegro subsequently destroyed the original chapel and replaced it with a Viennese-style mausoleum that still stands today.

You don’t have to go to the mausoleum, but just go up to the free observation deck in front of the mausoleum.

Spring is just beginning in June

We went to Lovcen at the beginning of June, on the coast it was +28 C, but in national The landscape in the park resembled October.

The trees were sometimes bare, sometimes with yellow foliage, cold air, and on some peaks remnants of snow could be seen.

The road through Lovcen Park along a serpentine road
Road from Budva to Lovcen by car

Trekking and overnight in Lovcen

For trekking enthusiasts, there are walking routes throughout the national park. Even from Kotor there is a hike to Lovcen in 3-5 hours.

Ivan's trough

You can spend the night in Lovcen National Park in order to have time to go trekking in the village Ivanova korita. There is a ropes course called Avanturisticki Park, paintball and horseback riding.

How to get to Lovcen from Budva

By transport

It is not possible to travel from Budva to Lovcen by bus - there is no public transport.

You need to get to the city of Cetinje: there is a bus from Budva for 2.5-3€ , journey 40-50 minutes.

Take a taxi to Cetinje. Behind 20-25€ The taxi driver will take you to the mountain, wait there and bring you back to Cetinje.

Lovcen by car

Asphalt is everywhere, only the road in some areas is narrow and designed for one car.

Road to Mount Lovcen in a wide area

You can stop at any observation point (the tour bus stops only in a couple of places) and spend as much time in the national park as you want.

Along the way, visit the Gorazda Fortress and Lipa Cave, which are not included in the excursion program. In Njeguši you will try prosciutto in several places, and not just where the guide took you.

Overlook overlooking the Bay of Kotor and the runway of Tivat airport

Group excursion to Lovcen

A visit to Mount Lovcen National Park, the village of Njegushi and the ancient capital of Montenegro, Cetinje, is included in the group excursion program Maxi Montenegro, 35€.

If you’re not ready to rent a car, buy an organized tour and see everything in one trip.

Don't want to go to Lovcen? Here you go ☞ where is the best place to buy and what other excursions are worth visiting?

The sightseeing bus also stops at this observation point.

Individual excursion

Individual excursions are more expensive, but there are more impressions.

A guide living in Montenegro will tell you about the country without tediousness. He will take you to non-pop places where high-quality prosciutto is sold, and show you the Lovcen Mountain National Park.

Have sunny weather on Mount Lovcen!

Mila Demenkova

Lovcen National Park was registered in 1952 as a special environmental zone of Montenegro. This park is located at the junction of two climatic zones - Mediterranean and continental, which contributed to the development of a rich fauna with numerous endemic species of animals and plants. 1/3 of the existing varieties of flora on the territory of Montenegro grow here.

The park area is also home to many animals: wolves, bears, wild boars, foxes, deer, rabbits, hedgehogs, voles, about 200 species of birds, 11 species of reptiles, and a huge number of different types of insects. The two highest peaks stand out in the Lovcen Mountains - Štirovnik (Štirovnik), 1,749 meters above sea level, which can only be climbed with special equipment, and Jezerski vrh (Lake Cross) -1,657 meters above sea level, where it is located.

Lifehack: In the summer, when visiting the city of Cetinje, Lovcen National Park, the Njegus residence, do not forget to take outerwear and wear jeans. The temperature difference between the hot coast and Cetinje can be up to 10-15 degrees. In winter, snow is possible here, especially at the top of the Njegos Mausoleum.

Lovcen National Park is beautiful at any time of the year. Driving along the mountain serpentine, you will see how the surrounding nature changes. If you just walked along the embankment on the coast and admired the palm trees, magnolias, and acacias, then here you will already find a real forest of northern latitude.

How to get to Lovcen National Park?

Lovcen National Park can be reached in two ways, from the city of Cetinje, as well as from along which part of the caravan route passed. You can plan a trip by car with an initial visit to Cetinje, then Lovcen National Park, and a descent along the old Kotor road, also called the Royal Road. A descent consisting of 25 loops awaits you. For some this may seem extreme, but the view of the Bay of Kotor will hide the possible difficulties of this mountain serpentine.

By car or taxi from Cetinje you can get to (Ivanova Korita), a picturesque plain in the mountains, where there is also an extreme park “” with ropes stretched on the trees, structures along which you can pass trails of varying difficulty levels.

Entrance to Lovcen National Park is paid - 3 euros per person.

Of course, it’s better to see it once than to hear about it a hundred times!

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Lovcen National Park is one of 5 nature reserves in Montenegro 🌳 It is closest to the sea coast, so tourists visit it first. It’s worth going here in the summer for the coolness of the mountains, because the height of the mountain range reaches 1749 m. In the spring, the meadows of Lovcen are dotted with crocuses, in the fall the trees are in golden robes, and in the winter the slopes are covered with snow. To travel to Lovcen, choose a sunny day, without rain, otherwise you won’t see the panorama of Montenegro because of the clouds.

From Kotor to Lovcen and the mausoleum, the road takes about the same - taking into account pauses in the photo - 1.5 hours. I would recommend making a small detour and stopping by the eco-village of Njegushi, it is along the way, but a little to the side. A similar road from Tivat, you can drive along the mountain through the fortress Trojica.


The smartest thing to do is to combine both routes together. Then you will have a circle, with several pauses - admire the nature of the national park, visit the mausoleum or panoramic platform, taste national dishes, buy prosciutto in Njegushi (cut and vacuum-packed), walk around Cetinje, Kotor or Budva. It turns out to be a trip for the whole day.

IMPORTANT: take something warm with you, the temperature will differ by 10-15 degrees, especially in cloudy weather.

Road from Kotor to Lovcen- this is a narrow serpentine for 1.5 cars with 32 bends, but people pass in “pockets” and on turns. The road from Cetinje to Lovcen, but there are no sharp turns - in the photo. For those who are used to driving on wide highways, the nervous system will suffer. And there is also a 3rd path, it does not go up to the top of the mountain, it is a bypass from Cetinje to Njegushi. Now it is being expanded by 2 lanes, a tunnel has been made in the mountain, and they promise to complete it by the end of April 2018. On Google Maps for now this road is shown from the time it was built - the 19th century, but soon it will be more convenient, safer and shorter.


Walking to Lovcen from Kotor you will need about 5-6 hours one way. The beginning of the trail can be seen in the photo - near the Shkurda River in front of old Kotor - 42.426938, 18.774335😉 There will be a place along the way Krstac with restaurant, where you can relax, have a snack, and drink cold drinks. You can hitchhike back (for free), spend the night in Ivanov Koryty or in Njegushi. I recommend going out early in the morning at dawn; during the summer day the bay is stiflingly hot, at which time you need to be already at the top.

Lovcen – 66 years National Park of Montenegro

The area of ​​the national park is small - 6220 hectares, the climate is temperate continental and mountainous, influenced by the Mediterranean. The highest peaks are Jezersky Vrh, where the mausoleum stands - 1657 m and Štirovnik with antennas opposite - 1749 m. To protect the unique nature and cultural heritage, the Lovćen mountain range was declared a national park under Yugoslavia in 1952.

Ivanova Koryta - a place for relaxation

I have already told you what to do in the Ivanova Koryt valley, and I can add to the above a summer children’s camp and tennis courts. It is located at an altitude of 1250 m and is of glacial origin. The name of the valley is associated with the spring of the same name Ivanova Korita, and originally came from the name of the Montenegrin ruler of the 15th century - Ivan Crnoevich. In the green meadows there was always pasture and vegetable gardens, which were irrigated by the same source, flowing through gutters from tree trunks.

The photo shows a view of the fertile valleys of Lovcen from above. Our Russian ethnographer and historian Pavel Rovinsky, whose name a street in Cetinje is named today, wrote: The water immediately partially seeps into the ground and goes down underground, and part of it flows from above to the low Blatishta platform, closed on all sides. This is an excellent place for grazing cattle; all grains grow well here, except corn, for which it is too cold here. His book “Montenegro in the Past and Present” is available.

Njegos Mausoleum instead of a chapel: construction scandal

The mausoleum of ruler Njegos was a bone of contention between the communist government of Yugoslavia and the Orthodox Church. In 1845, on this peak he personally erected a chapel in honor of his uncle Peter Njegos, who ruled Montenegro at that time. The great poet, philosopher and Lord wanted to bury him here after his death, which happened very soon; he died at the age of 38 from tuberculosis.

Peter II Petrovich Njegos ruled the country in such a way that he is loved and revered by the people to this day! He became something of a reformer, wanted to create a European state from semi-wild and undeveloped Montenegro, suppressed separatism, built the first hospital and schools, fought for the country’s independence from the Turks, was a great poet and philosopher. You can see his portrait on the 20 Serbian dinar banknote. And in Kyiv in 2013 a monument to Peter Njegos was erected

Montenegrins considered the chapel on Lovćen with the body of the ruler to be a shrine, so the reaction to the actions of the authorities to build a mausoleum in its place among ordinary people was negative. It was - it became

In fact, the initiative to build a mausoleum on the top of Lovcen for the first time came not from the communists, but from the royal power of the union state of Serbs, Slovenes, Croats. In 1924, Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic presented the first project; later sketches were presented at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. The second design of the mausoleum was created by the same architect, but 30 years later under the communists.

1 photo is what we have now, 2 photos are an unfulfilled project. Both remind me of Egypt...

I note that during the First World War, the chapel on Lovcen was destroyed by the Austrians. As a result, due to lack of funding, they decided to abandon the idea of ​​a mausoleum and restored that chapel. Russian architects, white emigrants, were also involved in this work. The restored chapel was made of cut Lovcen stone, the size and shape were the same as the previous one.


During World War II, the chapel was slightly damaged by the Italian occupiers, but not too much. As a result, its destruction lies in Montenegrin hands and conscience... On May 1, 1945, the communist newspaper “Borba” proclaimed the existence of the Montenegrin nation (without reference to the Serbs). The newborn nation had to reckon with the past, and the Njegoševa Chapel was supposedly a symbol of Serbian Montenegro, so it had to be destroyed. It is now difficult for foreigners to understand the essence of what is written, these are the turbulent Balkans, where every nation tells its neighbor that it did not exist, that its faith is better, etc. As for me, the communists simply did not want to contemplate the church on the top of Lovcen, visually visible from many points in Montenegro. Watch the video of the destruction

And in 1952, the authorities commissioned the already well-known sculptor Ivan Mestrovic to design a mausoleum. Interesting facts about him:

• Meštrović has always spoken out against the Union of Serbs and Croats
• The architect of the mausoleum, Njegos, had never been to Lovcen in his life; at the time of ordering the mausoleum project and until his death, he lived in the USA
• Before his death, he built a mausoleum for himself in his native place in Croatia

But allegedly due to poor economic conditions and the death of the architect in 1962, construction was suspended for a time. Smart people from all over the country stood up in defense of the Chapel and the Negoshi Covenant. There was a compromise decision to erect it in Cetinje. In 1969, the Organization for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Montenegro gives the go-ahead to move the Chapel. But the Holy Archbishop's Council of the Serpian Orthodox Church began to argue with this decision, and the next day in Cetinje they staged a demonstration against the Montenegrin-Litipal Metropolis. As a result, a trial began between the authorities and the church. It ended with a promise to preserve the authenticity of the building and move it to Ivanov Koryt. As a result, the chapel was destroyed to the ground...

Lovcen (Cetinje, Montenegro) - exact location, interesting places, inhabitants, routes.

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The heart of Montenegro beats on one of the two peaks of Mount Lovcen - Jezerski vrh, which is not far from Kotor. From here you can see this entire tiny beautiful country from the emerald waters of the Boka Kotorska to the harsh peaks of Durmitor and the surface of Lake Skadar. That is why its owner Petar II Njegos bequeathed to bury him here, so that he could always admire his beloved homeland. Shepherd, monk, metropolitan, prince, warrior, poet was an incredibly charismatic personality. Every Montenegrin considers it his duty to visit his mausoleum at least once in his life and bow to the memory of his great countryman.

A little history

At the beginning of the 18th century, Montenegro was the first of the Balkan states to separate from the Ottoman Empire and defended its independence for a long time. The political system was a theocracy; 18-year-old Petar II Njegos, who took the place of ruler according to the will of his uncle Petar I, took monastic orders. In just 20 years of rule, he managed to overcome the custom of blood feud that was corroding the people and direct all his energy to the fight against the Turks. His poems became folk songs. The Njegosh Chapel was first destroyed by the Austrians during the First World War, and the Italians completed their work in 1942. The mausoleum was erected in 1974 under a unified Yugoslavia.

We are a ray of light, enveloped in darkness. Happy is he who lives through the ages by deeds; it was not in vain that he was born in this world!..

Petar II Njegos. Mountain crown

Perth II Njegos Memorial

A serpentine with 25 turns winds along the slope of Mount Lovcen, but does not rise to the very top. A staircase of 461 steps leads from the parking lot to the mausoleum, half of them in a tunnel cut into the rock mass. According to the idea of ​​the author of the project, Ivan Mestrovic, this is a symbol of the long and difficult path to freedom traveled by Montenegro. The entrance to the mausoleum is guarded by two caryatids in national Serbian clothes. Behind them, in a hall with a high dome, stands a monument made of black Lovchen granite. Njegosh is deep in thought about something, and behind him a mountain eagle spreads its wings. The Italian government donated 220 thousand gold tiles for the ceiling. The tombstone in the crypt under the monument is decorated with a double-headed eagle and an Orthodox cross - symbols of secular and spiritual power, and the short word “Njegos”.

They say that Ivan Metrsovic, who fled from the Croatian Ustasha fascists to America during the war, asked Joseph Broz Tito to send him a circle of goat cheese and prosciutto from the village of Njegosi, the homeland of the great Montenegrin, as a fee.

From the mausoleum, a narrow paved path leads to the neighboring peak Shtirovnik, where there is an observation deck. In clear weather, the entire territory of Montenegro within the borders of the 19th century is truly visible from here. It is worth bringing warm clothes, it can be very hot on the shore, but at an altitude of 1700 m the wind chills to the bones. And hold the children’s hands, there are no fences along the path, there are deep abysses nearby.

The surrounding beauty has made this place very popular among newlyweds for their wedding ceremony. The local marriage certificate is valid in the Russian Federation.

Lovcen National Park

Lovcen National Park

The slopes of Mount Lovcen and the surrounding valley have been declared a protected area. The rare combination of sea and mountain climates makes the local clean air healing. On the territory of the park there is the village of Njegosi, every house in which “breathes” the Middle Ages. It is famous for Montenegrin delicacies - goat cheese and prosciutto, “the food that Njegos loved.” The largest valley in the park is Ivanova Korita, where cold springs flow from the ground. Water collects in natural pools and flows from one to another, forming numerous cascades. A balneological hospital for those suffering from pulmonary diseases has been opened here.

There is an Adventure Park in Ivanova Korita. Rope trails are hung along the trees, designed for children and adults. Here they teach you archery, ride ponies, and rent bicycles and ATVs for traveling along 7 trails in the forest. There is also a paintball court. There is a hotel and a campsite nearby where you can pitch a tent or camper. Camping is prohibited in the rest of the park.

Practical information

Location: Mount Lovcen. GPS coordinates: 42.399865, 18.837529.

How to get there: by taxi, car or bus with an organized group from Cetinje following the signs to Lovcen National Park; distance 20 km, travel time 40 minutes.

The mausoleum is open from 9:00 to 19:00, seven days a week, ticket price is 3 EUR. Prices on the page are for October 2018.