How to Find the Lipci Rock Art: Prehistoric Petroglyphs

Discover Kotor’s ancient carvings on a cliff face near Lipci with this guide that covers parking, the trailhead, dangers on the way, and whether it’s worth it.

Impressively preserved prehistoric rock art carved into limestone cliffs in Lipci.

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Hidden among the hills above the Bay of Kotor, the Lipci Rock Art is one of the area’s most unusual historical sites. Dating back thousands of years, the prehistoric petroglyphs depict animals, hunters, and other figures carved into the rock, yet they’re surprisingly easy to miss if you don’t know where to look.

We visited the site with my family, who are interested in history, while exploring the quieter parts of Boka Bay and found that getting there is almost as much of an adventure as finding the carvings themselves. Information and signage are incredibly limited, and most tourists don’t even know they exist.

In this guide, we’ll explain how to find the Lipci Rock Art, what they are, what to expect when you get there, whether it’s worth it, and if there really are as many snakes as reviews say.

Lipci Rock Art at a glance

Where: The Lipci rock art can be found by navigating to and parking at this location in Lipci on the Bay of Kotor.
When: May to September offers the nicest and most reliable weather.
How: Park near the trailhead and walk 10-15 minutes to the site.
Transport: Rent a car and drive to the grassy parking area before walking.
Accommodation: Stay in Kotor – Hostel Old Town Kotor | Viktor’s Rooms | Historic Boutique Hotel Cattaro | Hotel Hippocampus.
Connectivity: Get an eSIM (we use Airalo) to stay connected to Google Maps and avoid expensive roaming charges.
Currency: Euro (€).

Lucy in a yellow coat and here family walking along a trail in the forest to the Lipci rock art.

More from Kotor

What is the Lipci Rock Art?

The Lipci Rock Art is a collection of prehistoric carvings on a limestone rock face above the small village of Lipci. The pictures include deer, human figures, and geometric shapes, with the main scene showing a group of deer.

There’s terribly little information about the art, and they don’t seem to be managed by any kind of organisation.

The exact age of the artwork is debated, with researchers dating it to somewhere between the Bronze Age (which began around 1800 BCE in the Balkans) and around the 8th-10th century BCE. We’ve seen some claims that they’re around 3,000 years old.

Either way, they are genuinely ancient drawings, and it’s quite something to stand in front of them knowing they were created many years ago.

Read our Bay of Kotor Guide

Carved figures of deer and people on a cliff above foliage near Lipci.

Where is Lipci?

Lipci is a tiny settlement on the northern shore of the Bay of Kotor, around 1.5 miles (2 km) west of Risan. It’s on the coastal road between Risan and Morinj, making the rock art an easy detour if you’re driving around the bay.

If you’re coming from Kotor, Tivat, or Budva, the easiest way to cross the bay is to take the Kamenari-Lepetane Ferry. From Herceg Novi or Perast, you can simply follow the main road around the bay.

The difficult part isn’t getting to Lipci itself, but finding the rock art once you’re there. The site isn’t marked from the road at all, and the trail is poorly signposted. Then you need to take a rough, rocky path through a forest filled with snakes to reach it.

Read Where to Stay on the Bay of Kotor: Towns & Hotels

A dramatic dark cliff face near Lipci, Montenegro.

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Lipci Map

We’ve highlighted the location of Lipci on the map of the Bay of Kotor below.

A map of the Bay of Kotor with labels highlighting the locations of towns on the bay, including Herceg Novi, Lipci, Risan, Perast, Dobrota, Kotor, Tivat, and Rose, as well as labels highlighting key attractions and locations, including Orahoac, Njegusi, Lovcen National Park, Muo, Prcanj, the Vrmac Peninsula, the Lustica Peninsula, the Kamenari-Lepetane Ferry, and the border with Croatia,

How to find the Lipci Rock Art

Once you’ve driven to Lipci, turn off the main road (E65) onto a fairly narrow and hilly side road. Keep going to the end up the hill, and after a few minutes, you’ll reach a large grassy area where you can park your car.

Without a rental car, it’s harder to reach, but Blue Line public buses do stop in Lipci, and then you can walk from there.

Google Maps is actually pretty accurate, but you need to follow directions to this location to find the parking area. There’s another pin on Google for the art, but following directions to it would be misleading and dangerous, as it takes you up the M8 above the town and indicates you can climb down – you can’t!

From the parking lot, you should see a fairly wide, stoney path – this is not the trail! Keeping the parking spaces on your right and Villa Lipci, a local guesthouse, on your left, head up this path for about 10 seconds and look out for a signpost on the right-hand side. The sign indicates the trailhead for the rock art.

It’s easy to just head straight on in the wrong direction, but the trailhead is about here, and you turn right through the forest to get to the rock art.

Looking at old pictures on TripAdvisor, it seems there used to be a sign with a sketch of the drawings and some information, but it no longer exists – at least, we couldn’t find it on our visit.

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A sign reading "Lipci" pointing the way to prehistoric petroglyphs in the Bay of Kotor.

The trail consists of a rocky path through the forest. It’s overgrown in places, so we’d recommend decent footwear like hiking shoes. We also brought along our trekking poles – not for support, but to bash and hold stray branches out of the way.

The walk only takes about 10-15 minutes one-way, so it’s not long. The trail is pretty obvious for the most part, and there are a couple of boulders along the way with spray-painted red arrows showing the way, but there are no actual waymarkers like you might be used to if you’ve been hiking in Montenegro.

Now this is the bit that will put people off. This is a forest on a mountain, so there are spiders and snakes. We’d read reviews about snakes, but didn’t know whether the forest really was teeming with them or if people were exaggerating.

Well, about 5 minutes into the walk, we spotted a huge brown snake on a rock on the side of the path. It slithered into the forest away from us, so we got a good look at it before it disappeared.

Generally, snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them, but you do need to keep an eye on where you’re putting your feet, especially on the rocks.

We were in so much shock that we didn’t get a picture of it, but we’ve put one below of a smaller snake we saw in Durmitor National Park. We also saw several while hiking the Ladder of Kotor, but the enclosed nature of the forest at Lipci makes the encounters much scarier.

And then there are the spiders making webs in the bushes and hanging from trees. We only saw a couple and could skirt around them, but as an arachnophobe, this was not my ideal situation.

When we got back to the car, we found my sister, who had turned around at the snake sighting, chatting to a local guesthouse owner. She had just killed and brought out a huge snake she’d found in her kid’s bedroom. She said it was a fairly common occurrence and that they could be quite aggressive.

A snake slithering across a road in Montenegro.

We deliberately made a lot of noise as we walked, and even sang songs, to let any further snakes know we were coming and to get out of our way.

After about 10-15 minutes of walking, you’ll reach a cave, and you might think you’re at the end – not quite yet! Follow the path to the left, and you’ll then see the carvings on the cliff in front of you.

The pictures are not immediately obvious. Look carefully at the rock face above the path, where you’ll eventually spot them.

The most obvious ones are the swastika-like shapes at about eye level. If you follow those up and right, you’ll see the figures of deer and people. Scholars believe the squares aren’t swastikas, but the general shape of the Bay of Kotor, while the deer are believed to be feeding, accompanied by calm human figures.

On the right, looking back in the direction of the cave, we also saw chipped concentric circles in a dark part of the rock that reminded us of petroglyphs in Hawaiʻi.

On our way back, we also had a look at the cave, although we didn’t dare go in it in case of snakes and spiders. On the far wall, I swear I could also make out some scratchings.

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Prehistoric carvings of deer on a cliff in Lipci.

Is the Lipci Rock Art worth the walk?

We’d say it’s worth visiting Lipci for the rock art if you’re interested in history and archaeology and you’re already exploring this part of the Bay of Kotor. It’s an easy day trip from Kotor, and the walk itself is short and relatively easy to follow (hopefully we’ve described it well enough).

For some people, it absolutely isn’t worth the walk, as there’s no information about what you’re seeing, they’re hard to find, and there’s a genuine risk of spiders and snakes. My sister noped out when we came across a snake and waited back at the car for us.

But for us, it was all an adventure. Standing in front of ancient art and thinking about the people who made it is really special. The fact that we had the site all to ourselves made it even better, although it would be nice to see them conserved and preserved better in the future.

It doesn’t take very long to see either – you don’t need longer than an hour to do the return walk and see the pictures. We’d combine the visit with the Roman mosaic in Risan, which is only a couple of miles away, and a visit to the pretty town of Perast (where we went for dinner after) while you’re in the area.

Read 27 Cool Things to Do in Kotor

An image of a deer carved into a cliff face in Lipci, Montenegro.

Tips for visiting the Lipci Rock Art

Here are our top tips for visiting the Lipci petroglyphs.

Wear proper shoes – The path is short but rocky and uneven, so trainers or walking shoes are a much better choice than flip-flops.
Allow extra time to find the drawings – The route isn’t particularly well signposted, and the rock art isn’t immediately obvious when you reach the site.
Look up – The drawings are on the rock face above the path, so it’s easy to walk past them if you’re only looking at ground level.
Don’t touch the rock art – The markings are thousands of years old, so avoid touching, climbing on, or otherwise interfering with the rock face.
Take water – There’s nowhere to buy anything at the site, and even the short uphill walk can feel warm in the summer.
Bring natural insect repellent – There were a lot of bitey bugs and mosquitoes when we visited, especially because it had rained.
Be careful in wet weather – The rocky path can become slippery after rain, making the short walk more awkward.
Don’t expect a big attraction – Lipci is a small archaeological site rather than a major tourist attraction, so go knowing that the drawings are relatively small and can be difficult to see.
Combine it with nearby towns– Since Lipci is only around 1.5 miles (2 km) from Risan, it’s easy to visit the rock art alongside the Roman mosaics and other sights around the bay like Perast.