Active travel in Tara Canyon

Travel guide

Introduction to Tara Canyon

The Tara River Gorge was declared a Nature Reserve and Nature Monument in 1977 and folded into Durmitor National Park a year later; the Tara River Basin had already become a UNESCO Man and the Biosphere reserve in 1976. Durmitor National Park, first protected in 1952 and rooted in the Black Lake's 1907 status, was inscribed as a World Heritage property in 1980 and extended in 2005 to cover 350 square kilometres (the UNESCO core is cited at 33,895 hectares). The canyon runs 82 kilometres east to west, 60 kilometres of it protected in Montenegro, reaching 1,333 metres deep with an average of 1,073 metres — among the deepest river canyons in Europe. It sits at the Mojkovac–Žabljak–Pljevlja crossroads, with Žabljak (1,456 m) the gateway town, roughly 25–30 minutes from the Đurđevića Tara Bridge. The original bridge span was destroyed by partisans in 1942 to slow Italian forces, then rebuilt in 1946.