Topla

Topla is a neighbourhood of Herceg Novi, spread over the slope west of the Old Town between the town centre and Igalo. It is a lived-in district rather than a resort — apartment blocks, gardens, a parish courtyard, and stairways dropping to the waterfront promenade below. What makes it worth the walk is a cluster of buildings at the top of those stairs. The Topla complex holds two churches, the older Saint George and the Church of the Ascension, also called Sveti Spas, which dates from 1713. Around them sit a shared courtyard, a historic cemetery, former administrative buildings, and a one-room school. A Serbian-language school operated here from 1769, and its most-remembered pupil is Petar II Petrović Njegoš, who studied in it between 1825 and 1827. A marble plaque on the building records that, and has been a protected cultural property since 1973; the church and the school itself were listed in 1957. A few streets away is the only house Ivo Andrić ever had built for himself. It stands at Njegoševa 79, put up in 1962 and 1963, and the writer lived there with Milica Babić from 1963 until 1968. It is a house museum now, small and quiet, and the connection between the two sites is geography rather than biography — the writers are separated by more than a century. Below the hillside the waterfront runs on toward Igalo, with Topla's own beach on it. Published opening hours for both museums change with the season, so confirm before making a special trip.