Four Monasteries: Cetinje, Ostrog, Dajbabe and Podgorica

This is one of the fullest pilgrimage routes in the country: four shrines in one day. Ostrog and Cetinje monastery matter to the entire Orthodox world, the cave monastery of Dajbabe is barely known outside Montenegro, and the Cathedral of Christ’s Resurrection in Podgorica was built in our own time.

The tour is private: the guide arrives at your hotel around nine in the morning, the car is yours, the pace is yours. The order of the stops can change — you settle it with the guide.

Ostrog

A monastery inside a sheer cliff, nine hundred metres up. Not beside the rock but within it: two churches fitted into natural caves, a white façade pressed to grey stone, and from below it is not obvious what holds any of it up.

It is one of the most visited Orthodox shrines in the Balkans, and entry is free. Here lie the relics of St Basil of Ostrog, Metropolitan of Zahumlje, who withdrew into the mountains from Ottoman pressure in the 17th century and lived in a cave for fifteen years.

There is a story about the relics that everyone here knows: every ten years the white knitted socks on them are changed, and every time the monks find the soles worn through.

Coaches only reach the lower monastery. From there it is forty minutes on foot up a path, or a minibus for €1–2. Groups spend two to three hours at Ostrog — the queue for the relics can be long.

The Cathedral of Christ’s Resurrection, Podgorica

From Ostrog the route goes to the capital. The Cathedral of Christ’s Resurrection is the largest Orthodox church in Montenegro. It took twenty years to build, from 1993 to 2013.

Inside is full-height modern mosaic work; the belfry carries seventeen bells, the largest weighing eleven tonnes. It is a rare case of a new church that does not look like an imitation of an old one: it is honestly contemporary. What else to see in the capital is in Podgorica in half a day.

Cetinje monastery

The old capital. Cetinje was founded in 1482 when the court moved into the mountains away from the Ottomans, and for more than four centuries, until 1946, the country was governed from here. What else to see in town is covered in Cetinje in half a day.

The monastery holds two relics that draw visitors from across the world:

• the right hand of John the Baptist — the hand with which, by tradition, Christ was baptised;
• a fragment of the True Cross.

The relics of St Peter of Cetinje rest here too. Entry to the monastery is free.

It remains the seat of the Montenegrin Metropolitanate. Crosses and anything bought in the shop are customarily blessed by touching them to the relics.

Dajbabe

The strangest place on the route, and the one almost nobody knows about. A cave monastery outside Podgorica, dug into a hill in the shape of a cross.

It was founded in 1897 by the monk Simeon Popović — St Simeon of Dajbabe — who is said to have been shown the spot in a dream. Inside are low vaults, half-darkness and frescoes painted straight onto earth walls. He is buried there; he was canonised in 2010.

After Ostrog with its queues and Podgorica with its scale, Dajbabe produces the opposite impression: silence, five people inside, and the sense that you have walked into somebody’s life rather than a monument.

What it costs

The tour is private, so there is no fixed price per person. The form shows the guides available on your date and what each charges, and you choose. The figure depends on the guide, the size of the group and the car. As a rule of thumb, private tours start from €90 per group. One thing to know before you book: the company runs its private tours only with Russian-speaking guides. If Russian is no use to you, the honest alternative is to drive the route yourself in a hire car.

Paid separately:

• from €10 — lunch at a traditional restaurant, optional
• €3–8 — tickets to the Cetinje museums, optional
• €1–2 — the minibus up to the upper Ostrog, if you would rather not walk

Once you pick a guide the request goes to them, and after confirmation a booking link and voucher arrive by email. The exact figure is quoted by the guide who runs the tour.

What to wear

This is a pilgrimage route, and clothing here is a condition of entry rather than a suggestion. Shoulders and knees must be covered at all four sites: women are best in a long skirt or trousers, and a headscarf is welcome but not required; men should not wear shorts.

Comfortable closed shoes: Ostrog has a stony path, Dajbabe an earth floor. Water, a camera, cash for the shops. Where candles for the living and for the dead go in a Montenegrin church, and what else is customary here, is in Montenegro etiquette.

How it differs from the coach tour

The coach tour of Ostrog monastery with Cetinje is not running in 2026. The coach tour to Ostrog and Podgorica costs from €39 from Budva or Podgorica and from €49 from Kotor, Tivat and Bar, and runs on a timetable in season only; from October to May it is not held.

This one has twice the number of sites and, more importantly, you are not tied to a queue of forty people. At Ostrog that matters: with a group the wait for the relics is longer than it is for two.

Nearby

The secular route through the same mountains is the Heart of Montenegro, with the cable car, from €73 per person. Maxi Montenegro, with Njegoš’s mausoleum on Lovćen, is not running in 2026.

All destinations are on the things to do page; group tours with prices are under tours in Montenegro.

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Prices checked in September 2026.