Stari Grad is Budva compressed into a few hundred marble-paved metres: a walled medieval town on a small peninsula, with the Adriatic on three sides and centuries of history underfoot. The walls you walk beneath today are mostly Venetian work from the 15th to 18th centuries, and the republic’s winged lion still turns up carved above doorways if you look for it.
There is no ticket booth and no single sight to queue for. The streets are public and open around the clock, and the pleasure is in wandering: narrow lanes that open suddenly onto the main square (the Pjaca), the cluster of churches where Santa Maria in Punta and the Church of the Holy Trinity stand almost wall to wall, a small amphitheatre, and boutiques and konobas filling the ground floors. Early morning and late evening are when the town is most itself; midday in summer belongs to the excursion crowds.
The one paid attraction is the Citadela at the seaward tip, whose ramparts give the best views over the rooftops to Sveti Nikola island. Entry to the fortress is a separate ticket; the streets around it cost nothing.
Give it one to two hours, more if you settle into a cafe. When you have had your fill of stone, the walls point you straight onward: the coastal path west past the Dancing Girl statue leads to Mogren, and Ričardova Glava beach sits directly under the seaward walls.
