Herceg Novi Neighborhoods and Their Character

In the Old Town, houses are packed closely along narrow streets and stairways. Small courtyards lie inside the blocks of houses, reached by narrow passages from the street. Some houses also have gardens, with greenery occupying the spaces between stone facades and the town walls.

Some blocks have an almost rectangular footprint, while others follow irregular streets and the line of the town walls. Older houses and the walls were built on a rocky cliff immediately beside the sea.

In the former Lower Town, the lower part of the historic core, houses were more often built separately, with yards between them.

Topla has family homes and larger apartment buildings, alongside older stone houses built in small clusters. Over time, these older houses were extended and given additional floors. Some old facades have been covered with newer cladding, so the original stone walls are not visible everywhere.

Between the Pet Danica promenade and Njegoseva Street, houses with several apartments often have external stairways linking the floors. The area known as Topla II also has tall apartment buildings.

Topla was also the seat of the Topaljska komunitad, a local community with its own captain and administration during Venetian rule. Beside the churches of the Holy Savior and Saint George, three stone buildings are grouped around a shared courtyard. Some rooms were used by the captain and the chancellor of the local administration, and the compound also included a parish house. One of the buildings later housed a school attended by Petar II Petrovic Njegos, the Montenegrin bishop and writer. That small, single-room building, known as Njegos's School, is now a museum.

Savina has family homes with gardens and larger groups of apartment buildings. Plots are smaller and buildings more closely spaced along the coast, while larger private properties can also be found higher on the slope beside Savinska Dubrava, the woodland above Savina Monastery.

One example of grouped housing is the Savina apartment complex, a residential development within the wider area of the same name. It was built with its own small streets, a square and greenery between the buildings. Lower buildings stand closer to the coast, while taller ones along Brace Grakalica Street are partly set into the slope. As a result, fewer floors are visible from the street than from the lower side of the site.

Old stone-paved paths and retaining walls are part of Savinska Dubrava. Within the monastery grounds, paved stairways connect courtyards at different levels. The Church of Saint Sava stands separately, higher on the slope than the main monastery courtyard. For more about the monastery and other places to visit, read our guide to Herceg Novi attractions.