The Tara River canyon is one of the great natural wonders of Montenegro and of Europe: a dizzying gorge up to nearly 1,300 metres deep, carved over millions of years by the emerald waters of the Tara, the 'Tear of Europe', a river so clean you can drink from it in places. It is the deepest canyon on the continent and the second deepest in the world, protected within Durmitor National Park and recognised by UNESCO for its geological and natural value.
The most famous image is the Đurđevića Tara bridge, an elegant five-arch concrete bridge built over the abyss in the 1930s, from which you can take in the full depth of the canyon. A small adventure kingdom has grown up around the bridge: zip-lines that fly you across the void, vertigo-inducing viewpoints and, above all, rafting on the Tara's white water, the main activity, which draws travellers from all over the world to its rapids, waterfalls and thousand-metre walls.
This guide shows you how to make the most of it: where to see the canyon and the bridge, what the zip-lines and rafting trips (half day or full day) are like and how much they cost, the best time to go depending on whether you want thrills or calm, and how to get there from Žabljak, the north or the coast. Monumental nature and adrenaline in the heart of Montenegro's mountains.
The Tara River has been carving its canyon into the limestone of the Durmitor massif for millions of years. For centuries the river was a natural border between clans and, later, between Montenegro and Bosnia. The Đurđevića Tara bridge was built between 1937 and 1940, and when it was finished it was the largest concrete arch bridge for vehicles in Europe. In 1942 its engineer helped the Partisans blow up part of one span to slow down the Axis troops, an episode that became a well-known story of the resistance. You'll find the full story on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Montenegro's wild rooftop: the glacial Durmitor massif, the Tara Canyon —the deepest in Europe—, the warrior clans of the Montenegrin Highlands and the sacred mountain of Lovćen.
Read the history of The northern mountains (Durmitor, Tara) →They depart from Podgorica, 79 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The Tara River rises in the mountains of north-western Montenegro, where several streams flowing down from the Komovi and Sinjajevina massifs meet, and it runs for about 140 kilometres until it joins the Piva River to form the Drina, one of the great Balkan rivers. Along the way, the Tara has carried out one of the most impressive feats of natural engineering in Europe: over millions of years, it has carved a canyon up to nearly 1,300 metres deep into the limestone of the Durmitor massif. It is the deepest canyon on the continent and the second deepest in the world, surpassed only by the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.
The process was slow and colossal. Laden with sediment, the waters bored into the stone as the massif rose, cutting ever deeper between sheer walls that in some stretches drop more than a thousand metres. The result is a dizzying gorge of about 82 kilometres, lined with clinging forests, side waterfalls, springs and caves, with the river running along its floor in an intense emerald green.
That crystal-clear purity has earned the Tara a beautiful nickname: 'Suza Evrope', the 'Tear of Europe'. Its water is so clean that in many stretches you can drink it straight from the river, something exceptional on a continent of polluted rivers. The Tara basin is one of the last large, practically untouched river ecosystems in Europe, with ancient black pine forests, and that is why UNESCO declared it a Biosphere Reserve, as part of Durmitor National Park, a World Heritage Site since 1980.
For centuries, the Tara Canyon was much more than a geographical feature: it was a barrier and a border. Its depth and impassable walls separated communities, divided territories and marked the limits between clans, between regions and, later, between states. In its final stretch, the Tara partly traces today's border between Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, continuing its age-old role as a natural dividing line.
The mountains flanking the canyon, in the heart of Montenegro's wildest country, were the domain of pastoral, warrior tribes who turned this impossible terrain into a stronghold of freedom. As in the rest of the country, the extreme terrain allowed these communities to resist Ottoman rule and keep a fierce autonomy. The canyon's forests and caves sheltered the hajduks, the rebel-outlaws who fought Turkish power and whom popular tradition turned into heroes of the resistance.
Until fairly recently, crossing the Tara was a difficult and dangerous undertaking. The few fords and makeshift bridges that existed were of enormous strategic value, since they controlled passage between the two banks of an open wound in the mountain. These poor communications kept the canyon and its surroundings in an isolation that preserved both its nature and its traditions, but which also condemned the region to poverty and marginalisation for generations. The river united the people on its banks culturally and, at the same time, kept them physically apart.
The need to overcome that barrier led to the canyon's most emblematic structure: the Đurđevića Tara Bridge. In the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia, modernising the country meant connecting the two banks of the Tara to link the northern regions. Between 1937 and 1940, to a design by engineer Mijat Trojanović, an elegant five-arch reinforced concrete bridge was built, about 365 metres long, spanning the canyon some 150-170 metres above the river. When it was completed, it was the largest concrete arch road bridge in Europe, a technical feat for its time and a symbol of progress.
But the bridge barely had time to be used in peace. The Second World War broke out, and in 1942 the canyon became the scene of a famous episode. To halt the advance of the Axis (Italian) forces during operations against the Partisans, the resistance decided to put the bridge out of action. Engineer Lazar Jauković, who had worked on its construction, was given the task of calculating and directing the demolition of one of the arches, sabotaging his own work to block the enemy's way. Shortly afterwards, Jauković was captured by the Italians and executed on the very bridge he had helped to build and to destroy.
His story, somewhere between engineering and sacrifice, became a legend of the Yugoslav and Montenegrin resistance. After the war, the bridge was repaired and it still stands, crossed every day by travellers who stop to photograph the abyss. A monument next to the bridge remembers Lazar Jauković. Today, the concrete arch of Đurđevića Tara is one of Montenegro's most recognisable postcard views and the starting point for any visit to the canyon.
In the second half of the 20th century, the Tara Canyon began to attract a new kind of visitor: adventure lovers. Rafting down the river grew into a sport and a tourist activity, making the most of the rapids, the white water from the snowmelt and the spectacular setting of the thousand-metre walls. The stretch between Brštanovica and Šćepan Polje, where the Tara meets the Piva, became established as one of the best rafting routes in Europe, drawing enthusiasts from all over the world. Camps, cabins and a small adventure economy grew up around it, especially in the border village of Šćepan Polje.
But the biggest recent chapter in the Tara's history was not about sport but about ecology. In the 2000s, plans that had already been floated in Yugoslav times resurfaced to build hydroelectric dams in the canyon, some linked to projects on the neighbouring Drina River. The reservoirs would have flooded stretches of the canyon and changed Europe's purest river forever. Montenegrin society reacted strongly: environmentalists, scientists and ordinary citizens mobilised to defend the Tara in a campaign that struck a deep chord.
In 2004, the Parliament of Montenegro passed a declaration protecting the Tara River, committing to preserve it from the dam projects, a pioneering move that drew on its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve. That victory turned the Tara into a symbol of the country's environmental awareness, an example of how people power could stop the destruction of a natural treasure. The rescued river became an emblem of the 'ecological Montenegro' that the state itself proclaimed in its Constitution.
Today, the Tara Canyon is one of Montenegro's great natural attractions and the epicentre of adventure tourism in the north of the country. The combination of its scenic value (the deepest canyon in Europe, protected by UNESCO) with a range of adrenaline activities has made it an unmissable destination. Every day, the Đurđevića Tara Bridge welcomes travellers who peer over the edge, fly across from one wall to the other on a zip line, or get ready for rafting.
Rafting is still the star: half-day trips for beginners on the calmer summer waters, or full days along the spectacular stretch in spring, when the snowmelt fills the river with power. The zip lines next to the bridge, with lines of different lengths, offer a quicker but equally dizzying thrill. And for those who prefer to simply take it in, the canyon viewpoints and the Durmitor trails let you measure with your own eyes the huge scale of the gorge.
The Tara Canyon sums up, in a single place, much of what makes Montenegro special: untouched, monumental nature, a history of resistance carved even into the stones of its bridge, and an intense bond between people and their land, which in recent years has become a determination to protect what they have. Gazing at the emerald thread of the river a thousand metres below, or letting its rapids carry you between sheer walls, is a glimpse of the raw power of nature and of the memory of a people who learned to make their mountains and rivers the symbol of their freedom. The 'Tear of Europe' keeps flowing, clean and free, at the bottom of its green abyss.
