The travel supplements have long been asking, ‘Where is the new Prague?’ (My vote would be for Ljubljana, the Slovene capital). Today the question should be, ‘Where is the next Croatia?’ Croatian tourism has really kicked off in recent years, and the coast is saturated from Istria down to Dubrovnik. And yet, just a few miles south of Dubrovnik is a beautiful, secret country, crying out for tourists.
Montenegro was the smallest Yugoslav republic, and the last to break away from big brother Serbia as recently as June 2006. Until then, Montenegrin coastal resorts, such as Budva and Herceg Novi, relied on Serbian tourists. But since the split, Serbs have got the hump and Montenegro’s hoteliers and guesthouse owners are crying out for new guests.
The coast is just as beautiful as Croatia, but with a more spectacular mountain backdrop. It’s up in the mountains where Montenegro’s soul lies, particularly in Cetinje – the ancient capital – with its Ruritanian royal palaces and long-deserted embassies. It’s so much prettier than the modern capital, Podgorica (formerly Titograd), down on the plain.
Another unique feature of Montenegro is the Bay of Kotor (Boka Kotorska), the biggest fjord in the Mediterranean. Here the coast and the mountains come into direct contact, and deep in the chasm lies Kotor, a walled Venetian city dwarfed by the towering walls of the fjord.
There are no cheap flights to Montenegro’s Podgorica or Tivat airports (yet), but that is irrelevant when Dubrovnik airport is just 18km from the border. Or you can do as I did – get a boat from Bari in Italy to the Montenegrin port of Bar. I could give you the address of a good guesthouse owner there – she’s my mother-in-law!
The Bradt guide to Montenegro is the only guide to the country published in the UK. As a series, they are highly personal guides that cover countries overlooked by other publishers, including all the Balkan nations.
Lonely Planet’s Western Balkans covers Montenegro. Hungary’s Gizi Maps do a national map of Montenegro, while Slovenia’s Geodetski Zavod Slovenije (GZS) 100k map of the Montenegrin Coast (Crnogorsko primorje) is excellent. Don’t rely on any locally produced maps.
Author: Guy Bristow
Date: 4 December 2007
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