Bar

Bar, known to the Venetians as Antivari, stands beneath Mount Rumija on the Adriatic coast. Its old walled town lies inland above the harbour, surrounded by olive groves and mountain slopes. In the Middle Ages it was a bishop's seat and a prosperous commune, with its own laws and coinage as well as churches and merchants' houses.

Venice held Bar from 1443 until the Ottomans captured it in 1571. Under its new rulers the town remained a fortified provincial centre. An aqueduct carried water from the mountain across a stone bridge into the town, while Ottoman baths and other buildings joined the older churches within its walls. The port kept Bar connected with the Adriatic even as its rulers and institutions changed.