Visiting Cetinje – the former royal capital of Montenegro

Cetinje was the royal capital of Montenegro from 1910-1916. While Podgorica (called Titograd from 1946 to 1992) is the capital today, many institutions still remain in Cetinje. Some of these are the National Museum of Montenegro and the National Library, as well as several administrative and operational organs of government. Several people refer to Cetinje as the “cultural and educational centre of Montenegro” to this day.

Overview for visiting Cetinje – the former royal capital of Montenegro

• What to do in Cetinje?
• Ethnographic Museum of Montenegro
• Museum of King Nikola
• Krempita
• Cetinje Monastery
• Where to park in Cetinje
• Lipa Cave

What to do in Cetinje?

I visited several museums, a monastery and the Lipa cave in Cetinje, while sleeping in Budva – 38 minutes away by car. If you want to try the traditional Montenegrin cream cake Cetinje is also an ideal location for that!

The history of Cetinje is a lot more complicated than the first paragraph of this article makes it seem, but if I tried to explain it here the post would get too long. If you visit you are welcome to visit the museums and learn about it yourself 😉

Today it is obvious that Cetinje is long past it’s prime, with many buildings having fallen into disrepair. In a great marketing move these ruins have been covered by huge banners, depicting the very buildings that once stood in that spot.

Ethnographic Museum of Montenegro

The Ethnographic Museum of Montenegro is very small. Four rooms downstairs, each with one or more topics dedicated to different culturally important themes and items, are connected by the main hallway. On the second level is a single big room with traditional attire from different periods from all over Montenegro. The admission ticket comes with an audio guide you can download (on their Wi-Fi) onto your phone, which has all the explanations.

I was most impressed by the intricately designed belts from the female traditional outfits. They look very heavy and impractical, too…

Museum of King Nikola

The Museum of King Nikola is located in the former palace of the last Montenegrin ruler Nikola I Petrović Njegoš. In 1863 Nikola ordered the construction of a palace for the residential needs of Princess Darinka, his aunt. The people soon started to call the new building „Palac”. In 1867 the Montenegrin sovereign gave up the original idea and moved his court residence from the nearby Biljarda to the new building.

In some rooms the palace has been kept in the condition the family had left it in, while others have been turned into display rooms for materials of the political, military and cultural history of Montenegro – all in connection with the royal family of course.

You’re not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, so every picture of the inside is directly from the museum itself, copyright and all. The rooms look exactly like in the pictures and there are a few more than depicted. Interestingly the bedrooms which have been preserved or restored are those of King Nikola and Queen Milena, as well as their two daughters Princess Ksenija (bottom left – 3rd) and Princess Vjera (bottom right – 4th). The only two children (out of 12) who lived into adulthood and died unmarried. They are also the same daughters who have been exhumed and reburied in Montenegrin soil on 1st October 1989 with their parents.

The Blue Palace is another one of the royals palaces. Originally it’s was the heir’s palace. Today the Blue Palace is the official residence of the President of Montenegro. You can’t go inside, but you will walk past it on your way into the city.

Cetinje Monastery

This monastery was rebuilt in 1701 as a monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church, on top of the ruins of the former Crnojević monastery on site. Between then and the 1979 earthquake the monastery suffered much more destruction and was rebuild and changed over and over. The last rebuilding effort took place after the earthquake. During this rebuilding the treasury in the right wing of the monastery was given a makeover as well and nowadays is a publicly accessible area where many religious artefacts and documents are stored and displayed.

Admission is free, but there are dressing rules for visitors according to the Orthodox religion. The monks who still live in the monastery oversee the visitors and help out with scarves in case someone wants to visit, but came dressed for the beach.

Parking in Cetinje

I parked at 9WMG+MGM, Štampara Makarija in Cetinje, where an area has been designated for free parking next to the road. It’s about 5 minutes on foot into the city and you walk past the Blue Palace.

Lipa Cave

The parking lot of the cave, from where a “train” takes you to the cave, is only 10 Minutes away from the parking lot in Cetinje I mentioned above.

Lipa cave was opened to the general public in 2015 and offers two kinds of tours: A one hour basic cave tour and a 100 minute advanced cave tour that descends into the area of the cave without footpaths (at the moment only the first one). This is the tour I went on:

The basic tour starts with a “train” taking everyone the the cave entrance, inside the cave a winding path trails through the darkness, with illuminated signs near most reference points. A guide accompanies every tour and tells you about the cave and it’s history. The tour was great!

And it would have been even better if people actually followed the rules. Didn’t touch the 10.000 year old stalactites and stalagmites, didn’t talk loudly while the guide is explaining something and actually moved along instead of being on their phones. 🙂