Stari Bar (Old Town Bar)
Stari Bar (Old Town Bar), sprawling across a rocky plateau at the foot of Mount Rumija four kilometers inland from the modern coastal port, is one of the Mediterranean's largest and most atmospheric ruined fortress towns. Settled since the Bronze Age and shaped by Illyrians, Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans, the fortified city was violently shattered in 1878 during a fierce Montenegrin siege that detonated gunpowder stores and destroyed its ancient aqueduct. Left largely abandoned after the catastrophic 1979 Montenegro earthquake, the sprawling labyrinth of ruined churches, Ottoman baths, Venetian ramparts, and overgrown stone streets is renowned for reported encounters with phantom bells, disembodied footsteps, and spectral apparitions of former inhabitants.