Nothing compares to a vacation that includes a relaxing horseback ride. Since ancient times, horses have been an integral part of the lives of people in the north of Montenegro. In a country where roads arrived late and mountains rise to over two thousand metres, the horse was infrastructure long before it was recreation, and the network of tracks it created is still the best way to see the highlands.
A working animal first
Numerous katuns bear witness to the existence of cattle breeding and breeding of this noble animal. Horses were mainly used for getting wood, transporting grain and salt from the city, pulling, and of course riding. A katun is a summer settlement, a cluster of timber huts and stone byres high on a mountain pasture, occupied only from late spring until the first snow while the herds graze the upper meadows. Families moved up in June with everything they needed on horseback, and back down in September the same way. Many katuns are still in use every summer above Sinjajevina, Bjelasica and Durmitor.
The animal that did that work is a small, stocky mountain horse, sure-footed on scree and content on poor grazing rather than fast. It is an easy horse to ride and a forgiving one for beginners, which is why so many riding operations in the north are built around it.
Where the trails go
The combination of accommodation in one of the numerous eco-villages or private cabins and horseback riding is the best way to explore the National Parks, numerous lakes, river courses and various mountain ranges. These tours will introduce you to the idyllic mountain regions of Bjelasica, Durmitor, Sinjajevina, and Piva in the best possible way.
Each of those has its own character. Bjelasica is rounded, grassy and generous, with Biogradska Gora national park and its glacial lake set inside one of the last remaining tracts of old-growth forest in Europe, protected since the nineteenth century. Durmitor is harder country, a limestone plateau of eighteen glacial lakes above the Tara canyon, with wide open plateaus around Žabljak that suit long, fast stretches. Sinjajevina is the great pasture ridge in between, effectively a highland grazing plateau with almost nothing on it but katuns and sheep. Piva turns everything vertical again, with the reservoir far below and the Piva canyon walls rising past a thousand metres. Further east, the Komovi and the Prokletije above Plav and Gusinje offer the most dramatic riding of all, and the least infrastructure.
Schools, day rides and multi-day tours
Organized horse-riding tours will take you along paths that cannot be passed by motorized vehicle, and therefore the experience of untouched nature, silence and peace will be more complete. In numerous riding schools located in the north of Montenegro, you can master the basic movements, and you can subscribe to one-day and multi-day tours combined with camping.
In practice most visitors start with a short lead ride of an hour or two from a farm or eco-village, which needs no experience at all. From there the options run to full-day rides between katuns and multi-day trips where luggage moves separately and nights are spent in mountain huts, tents or village houses. Kolašin, Žabljak, Mojkovac and the Pljevlja area are the usual bases, and all of them combine easily with rafting on the Tara, walking in Biogradska Gora or a day on Durmitor.
Riding as therapy
Another important characteristic of horses is that horse riding or hippotherapy is a recognized and proven method of helping people with disabilities and their more effective social integration. The first ranch for hippotherapy in Montenegro was opened in Kosanići near Pljevlja, which welcomes visitors every day.
Season and practical notes
- The highland season runs roughly from June to early October. Snow lies late on the plateaus and the katuns are empty outside those months, so spring rides stay lower down.
- Mountain weather turns fast above fifteen hundred metres. Carry a shell layer and something warm even in July, and expect afternoon thunderstorms.
- Wear long trousers and closed shoes with a small heel. Ask for a helmet, and say honestly what your riding level is before you are assigned a horse.
- Book ahead in July and August, and again for anything multi-day, since stables in the north are small and run only a few groups at a time.
- Katuns are working places. Ask before riding through a herd or photographing people at work, and close gates behind you.
- Away from the highlands, the long flat sand of Velika Plaža near Ulcinj is the one stretch of Montenegrin coast with room for the same kind of riding, best in the cooler hours at either end of the day.
