Things to do in Montenegro

Montenegro is smaller than Wales and holds a fjord, a bare karst plateau and a glacial lake inside it. The country uses the euro but is not in the European Union. It adopted the euro in 2002 and kept it.

The country beyond the bay

Most visitors see the Bay of Kotor and stop there. The rest of the country changes fast. An hour inland the coast gives way to bare mountain.

• Lovćen. The black mountain the country is named after, with Njegoš's mausoleum at 1,657 metres and twenty-five hairpins on the road up.
• Skadar Lake. The largest lake in the Balkans, about a third of it in Albania, with fishing villages like Virpazar on the shore.
• Budva and Sveti Stefan. The open Adriatic coast, flatter and busier than the bay, with the islet hotel everyone photographs.
• Lipa Cave. Two and a half kilometres of passages near Cetinje, the one show cave in the country.

The north

Above the coast the country turns alpine. Durmitor has forty-eight peaks over 2,000 metres and eighteen glacial lakes. Below it the Tara river cuts the deepest canyon in Europe.

Rafting the Tara is the summer fixture, and the drive up is half the day. Podgorica sits between the two halves. It is the capital and mostly a transit stop.

What the offer is made of

Almost everything is a private day out with a driver-guide. The reason is the roads. Distances are short, but a hundred kilometres can take three hours.

The water half runs from the bay: boat trips, the Blue Cave, fishing, mussels eaten where they are farmed. Albania and Croatia are both a day trip away. Tours cross from Tirana and Dubrovnik in both directions.

Practical

• Currency. The euro, though the country is outside the EU and outside Schengen. Cards work in towns; villages are cash.
• Borders. Croatia and Albania both need a passport and both queue in August. Build two hours into a cross-border day.
• Season. May to October. The Lovćen road closes with snow and the boat offer stops in winter.
• Roads. Narrow, winding, often single-track on the mountain sections. Not the place to learn to drive abroad.
• The bay ferry. The Kamenari–Lepetane crossing cuts about an hour off the drive around the bay.