Taking a trip to Montenegro

Oct 11 2009 by Gordon Barr, Sunday Sun

HIS name’s Smith, MIKE SMITH – and he’s shaken and stirred on a trip to Montenegro . . .

AFTER a few glasses of rather fine local red wine, I was drawn into a debate about which smart hotel on Montenegro’s sparkling Adriatic coast was the backdrop for James Bond and Casino Royale.

Imagine the disappointment when our guide admitted while the story was set in this jewel of a Balkan country, poor old Daniel Craig never got any closer than the landlocked Czech Republic.

Undaunted, we decided we would go on our own right royal casino hunt – well, the smart bars that would be more than happy to shake, not stir, us a martini.

The next day lounging on the sun beds next to the horizon pool at the Queen of Montenegro Hotel, overlooking that azure sea at Budva, our hearts went out to 007 for missing the chance of discovering this magnificent small stretch of the Mediterranean.

To be honest, he could easily afford to book into the country’s latest luxury watering hotel, the island resort of Sveti Stefan due for completion later this year.

Movie stars are no strangers to Montenegro, although the Balkan wars of the 1990s stemmed the flow that had for a generation brought the likes of Princess Margaret, Sophia Loren, Richard Burton and Kirk Douglas to what was then one of the six republics that formed Yugoslavia.

Being politically linked to Serbia after the wars, and the consequent sanctions that came with it, destroyed Montenegro’s tourist industry. But since independence in 2006, the visitors are coming back.

There are kilometres of magnificent sandy beaches, including the Med’s longest (14kms), which reaches into Albania. The main tourist towns have plenty of entertainment with restaurants and cafe bars, plus discos Tropicana in Budva and Maximus in Kotor.

Along the coastline are historic castles and monasteries, walled towns and villages with honey-coloured ramparts built from the local limestone, churches spanning the millennia and the religious divides, grand Venetian palaces and fortifications.

When it all gets too much on the feet there are trendy modern bars in the squares where locals and tourists alike while away the time people watching.

This magnificent stretch of coast runs from Albania to Croatia, and the famous town of Dubrovnik is just a three-hour bus journey from Budva.

Cute as Dubrovnik is, nothing in Croatia can compare with the largest “fjord” in southern Europe – really a bay with deep inlets sheltering the old walled town of Kotor and its smaller neighbours.

Move away from the coast and you are quickly in totally different worlds. A short drive from the coast is Lake Skadar, one of the country’s national parks, claiming Europe’s last colony of pelicans with all manner of other birds.