Budva
Budva is two and a half thousand years old and acts nineteen. The oldest town on this coast — Greeks, Romans, Venice for four centuries — sits on a small peninsula behind walls the Venetians raised and an earthquake in 1979 shook down and the town put back stone by numbered stone: a citadel at the tip, three churches around a square the size of a living room, lanes with laundry and cats. Around the peninsula the Riviera unrolls — Mogren under its cliff, the long Slovenska beach with its promenade, Bečići beyond, Jaz to the west where the concerts happen — and offshore the island of Sveti Nikola, which the locals call Hawaii without a trace of irony. Six kilometres down the coast, tied to the shore by a causeway, the islet of Sveti Stefan is a village that became a hotel and a photograph.
The traveller walks the walls of the old town at seven, when the sea is glass and the bell towers are the only thing awake; swims at Mogren, reached by the path under the cliff, before the beds are rented; takes a boat to Sveti Nikola for the afternoon; walks the whole Slovenska promenade at the hour of the passeggiata, one ice cream per kilometre; drives or takes the bus to the viewpoint over Sveti Stefan at sunset — the islet is private, the view is free —; eats grilled fish and black risotto in the lanes; and, if the season and the mood are right, lets the beach clubs have the night.
The Guide's honesty: Budva in July and August is Montenegro's Ibiza — loud, full, priced for yachts, and wonderful if that is what you came for; if it is not, come in June or September, when the water is warm and the volume is off —; the beaches near the old town are pebble and paid loungers, and the free strip is narrow: Jaz and the coves toward Petrovac are the sensible swim; Sveti Stefan cannot be entered unless you are a guest, and the beaches beside it are half public — check which half —; taxis quote in euros and should agree the fare first; and Kotor is twenty-two kilometres and a different century away — go for a day, sleep here.