Car Rental in Buljarica

The Riviera's wild beach

Buljarica is the long, mostly-undeveloped beach immediately south of Petrovac, 2,250 metres of pebble running between the Resovo brdo cape at the north end and Dubovica hill at the south. By Budva-Riviera standards it is empty: the northern third of the strand has a handful of seasonal bars and a campsite, and the southern two-thirds is essentially unbuilt. The village of Buljarica itself sits inland behind the beach, a scatter of family villas and small apartment buildings on the slopes around the Buljarica field.

Anyone picking up a rental car at Tivat Airport or Podgorica Airport finds Buljarica on the Adriatic Highway south of Petrovac, with the access road signed clearly just past the southern headland. A hire car makes practical sense here in a way it often does not for the more compact Riviera resorts: the beach is off the highway, Gradište Monastery sits up a steep road above the village, and the coves at either end of the main strand require a short drive or a long walk across the headlands to reach. The monastery road in particular benefits from having a car; the single-lane track climbs steeply from the village and the approach on foot in summer heat is a serious undertaking. Petrovac is close enough for an evening out, Bar is half an hour south for the old town at Stari Bar and the ferry to Bari, and the full south-Riviera circuit back to Budva via Sutomore takes under an hour.

Gradište Monastery on the hilltop

The hill at the back of the Buljarica bay carries Gradište Monastery, an eleventh-century compound with three churches inside its walls (most prominently the Church of Saint Nicholas). The monastery is a protected cultural and historical landmark and is best known for one specific entry in its archives: in 1597 the monks Stefan of Paštrović and Sava wrote here what is widely cited as the first spelling book in the Serbian language. The monastery is small and most days quiet; the road up to it from the coast climbs through scrub oak and pine on a narrow single-lane track that is driveable in a standard car on dry days, gaining elevation quickly from the shore. The views from the courtyard cover the full arc of the Buljarica bay below and the open Adriatic to the south, with the Petrovac cape visible at the northern end of the cove. Inside the main church, 16th-century frescoes on the interior walls survived the monastery's Ottoman-period disruption largely intact. Visiting the monastery as part of a morning at Buljarica takes around an hour return from the coast road.

Resovo to Dubovica: the cove end to end

The Buljarica cove runs in a wide gentle arc between two named hills. Resovo brdo, at the northern end, separates the cove from the Petrovac harbour, and the headland walk between them takes about twenty minutes one way. Dubovica, at the southern end, is the higher hill that the road from Buljarica to Bar climbs over. The beach surface is fine pebble grading to coarser stones at the southern end, and the swimming is clean and shallow for the first stretch out. The sixty-thousand-square-metre stretch of beach is the largest single bay on the Budva Riviera, and the comparison most often made is with Velika Plaža further south near Ulcinj, with the same wide-open feel but a shorter total length. The water at the northern end, near the bars and the campsite, is clean and calm; the bay's orientation keeps much of the wind-driven debris out of the cove, and the pebble bottom stays clear to several metres depth close to shore. Natural shade on the beach is limited to the pine trees behind the campsite; most visitors rely on parasols from the beach concession or time their swim for early morning or late afternoon when the sun drops behind the Resovo headland.

The Sea Dance Festival years

Buljarica hosted the Sea Dance Festival, a sister event of Serbia's long-running EXIT, from 2018 through 2022. The festival's main stage was set on the northern third of the beach in the days before its August dates, and most of the visitor accommodation in central Petrovac and the village above Buljarica filled with festival-goers. The event moved away from Montenegro in 2023 and ran in alternative European host countries instead; talk of bringing it back to Buljarica has resurfaced annually since. Outside of festival weekends the bay stays quiet, which has historically been the bigger draw for the small camping crowd that returns each season.

Buljarica car rental

Buljarica car rental visitors collect from the practical pickup points further north (Tivat Airport, central Budva) or further south (Bar town, Podgorica Airport via the Sozina tunnel motorway) and drive in along the E65/E80 Adriatic Highway. A hire car is the only way to reach the Gradište Monastery road and the smaller coves at each end of the bay. From Petrovac the access is a one-kilometre run south, signed clearly from the coast road; from Bar the approach is the other direction over the Dubovica headland. The village access road off the highway is narrow, and the parking at the beach end is informal: a few car parks behind the seasonal bars at the northern end, and roadside spaces further down the bay.

Camping and the rest of the accommodation

Buljarica's accommodation is unlike the rest of the Riviera. The biggest single site at the beach end is a long-running campsite, kamp Buljarica, with pitches set back into the pines behind the northern strand. Beyond the camp the inventory is family-run villas and small apartment buildings on the slopes inland; there are no large resort hotels, no all-inclusive packages, no purpose-built marinas. Visitors who prefer that style of stay base in Montenegro's camping circuit further north and use Buljarica as a day stop on the coastal route.

The road south to Bar

South of Buljarica the coast road climbs over Dubovica and drops into a long quiet stretch before Bar, the country's main port, about 22 km from the beach. The Sozina tunnel motorway from Bar to Podgorica is the fastest inland route once you are past Buljarica, cutting under the coastal mountains and dropping drivers onto the Skadar Lake plain in roughly fifteen minutes. The drive south through Sutomore and into Bar takes around half an hour outside of season; in July and August the coast road behind the Buljarica bay slows down to a procession of seasonal traffic.