Ulcinj: the Adriatic's most unexpected corner

Ulcinj is, geographically, Montenegro. Administratively, too. But culturally, linguistically and in the daily fabric of its urban life, Ulcinj is Albania. Seventy percent of its population is ethnic Albanian; Albanian is the language you hear in the markets, in the cafés and between neighbours. The mosque is the most prominent building in the old town. Street signs appear in two languages. This city, Montenegro’s southernmost, twelve kilometres from the Albanian border, is where Montenegro ends and something else begins.

Understanding Ulcinj requires understanding that the Balkans are a map of ethnicities and languages that does not align with the map of political borders, and that this discrepancy — which has generated conflicts for centuries — can also be the source of something more interesting: the overlapping of cultures in a single space that time has deposited in layers.

Pirates, slaves and the darkest Mediterranean

The history of Ulcinj (called Dulcigno by the Venetians and Ülgün by the Ottomans) has a chapter that tourist brochures tend to omit with some discretion. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the city was one of the main pirate ports of the Adriatic and eastern Mediterranean. The pirates of Ulcinj — a mix of local corsairs, renegades of various origins and Ottoman mercenaries — operated from the walled city and held captives of up to forty different nationalities. The slave market of Ulcinj was active for more than a century.

Miguel de Cervantes, captured by Barbary pirates in 1575, spent five years as a slave in Algiers; there are scholars who have argued, with debatable but persistent evidence, that part of that captivity may have been in Ulcinj. The hypothesis is contested and the evidence is not conclusive, but the mere existence of the debate says something about the role this city played in the trade of human beings across the medieval Mediterranean.

The old town — the citadel perched on the cliff — preserves the defensive logic of that period: Venetian walls reinforced by the Ottomans, narrow streets, the mosque built over a church, and the sea visible in every direction. The Balšić Palace, from the fourteenth century, is the oldest civil building. There is a small archaeological museum exhibiting pieces from the Greek period through the Ottoman era with the modesty of museums that have no budget but genuine material.

Velika Plaza: thirteen kilometres of sand

Four kilometres south of the city, Velika Plaza begins — the Great Beach: thirteen kilometres of dark, fine sand stretching to the mouth of the Bojana River at the Albanian border. It is the longest beach on the eastern Adriatic and one of the few on this coast where hotel development has not occupied the entire space: behind the sand there is a strip of dunes, and behind the dunes, fields and small woodlands.

The sand is darker than at other Montenegrin beaches — almost grey on overcast days — giving it a different, more mineral visual quality that connects visually with African landscapes rather than the conventional Adriatic. The sea here is flat and warm, ideal for swimming, though the seabed descends gradually: you have to walk quite far to reach waist depth.

In season, the northern part of Velika Plaza has beach bars and sunbed rentals at prices below those of the Budva Riviera. Towards the south, the beach empties progressively until, in the last kilometre before the border, it is practically deserted. Walking to that far end from the start is a ninety-minute trek, and the reward is a strip of sand with nobody under the sun.

The salt pans and Ada Bojana

The Ulcinj Salt Pans, north of the city, are a nature reserve of around two hundred hectares where more than two hundred and fifty bird species have been recorded. They are a reference point on migration routes between Europe and Africa: flamingos, pelicans, herons and dozens of wading species pass through in spring and autumn. Entry is free; the best time to visit is at dawn.

Ada Bojana is a delta island formed by the Bojana River at its mouth, connected to the mainland by a bridge. It has a history as a nudist destination: during the Yugoslav era it was one of the best-known naturist sites on the Adriatic, frequented by Western European tourists who found in Yugoslavia a freedom that other socialist states did not allow. Today parts of its beaches remain nudist, with a mix of campers, bungalows and fish restaurants where Bojana trout and eel are local specialities.

The combination of all this — an Albanian city in Montenegro, pirate history, the longest beach, a nature reserve, a historically nudist island — makes Ulcinj the destination most difficult to fit into the standard catalogue of Montenegrin tourism. And that difficulty, precisely, is its greatest appeal.

The complete Far Guides Montenegro guide includes detailed routes, interactive maps and all the practical information you need to plan your independent trip.