Break in the beautiful balkans

Grab a taste of late summer in Montenegro - home of great food, history and weather

FORsome late season sun my tip is Montenegro.

Montenegro (which used to be part of Yugoslavia, borders with Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo) is a stunning country with good hotels, great food and wine, glorious sunshine, friendly locals and is cheap as chips.

Independent from Serbia since 2006, it’s a stable democracy with an open economy, so don’t worry that it’s somewhere ‘dodgy’.

If you need further proof, its tourist industry is growing at the highest rate in the world – with more than 2 billion Euros being ploughed in from foreign investors.

Now it’s available from easyJet Holidays, so it’s the bargain destination of the year.

You can get a week in October here, with flights from Gatwick and B&B in a five-star hotel with spa for under £500.

This little Balkan country of rugged mountains, medieval villages and a narrow strip of beaches along its Adriatic coastline is the new kid on the block for tourists, so get in quickly before the prices rise.

It had been more than 30 years since I’d visited, and all the changes were to the better – and it’s not often you can say that.

You can now travel to Tivat with easyJet from both Manchester and Gatwick. Tivat’s tiny airport is just 15 minutes’ drive from the beautiful beach resorts of Budva and neighbouring Becici, where we stayed.

Our base was the Hotel Spendid (questionable name; great hotel). It is five-star with a brilliant spa, massive swimming pools, comfortable rooms and a great restaurant. Really, there’s nothing not to like. It’s also great value if you book with easyJet, so it ticks all the boxes.

The highlight of Montenegro is the UNESCO World Heritage town of Kotor – an absolutely beautiful ‘mini-Venice’. Dominated by brooding mountains, this little walled town (population 1000) has buildings that are 2000 years old within its 9th-Century walls.

It is a labyrinth of cobbled, narrow alleyways with charming shops and restaurants and at its centre is St Tyrphon’s Cathedral, dating back to 1116. There are countless churches and palaces – the whole place looks like a film set, it’s picture-perfect.

It has, in fact, been named as the number one town to visit in the world in Lonely Planet’s ‘Best in Travel’ yearbook 2016.

They have a Maritime Museum housed in an 18th-Century palace, and the Town Hall is in a Venetian-style palazzo.

Thanks to the city walls and its strategic location, Kotor managed to fend off the many attacks made on it by the Turks, and if you’re feeling energetic you can climb up the mountain to look down on to the town and take in the breath-taking view. It’s about one hour’s hike (apparently – I won’t pretend I did it!).

The cat is the symbol of the town – they even have a Cat Museum with all manner of cat memorabilia, and wherever you look there’s a moggy lying in the sun, just waiting to be petted.

Durmitor National Park – home to Europe’s last virgin black pine forest – encompasses limestone peaks, glacial lakes, wildlife such as bears and wolves, and the 1300m-deep Tara

River Canyon, the second deepest in the world after the Grand Canyon, where you can go river rafting.

More than 70% of the country is covered by mountains higher than 800 metres (Montenegro means ‘black mountains’). So, if you like the great outdoors, Montenegro is a good destination for you too. Some recent developments include the swanky Porto Montenegro – a superyacht marina complex which was once a historical AustroHungarian naval base.

Here you can still visit the Naval Heritage Museum and go aboard an old submarine. The Yugoslavian sub “Hero” was built in 1967 and could stay at sea for up to 45 days with its 28 crew. Don’t go in if you’re claustrophobic though.

With more than a kilometre of waterfront, at the heart of Porto Montenegro is the wonderful five-star Regent Hotel, along with the Porto Montenegro Yacht Club. For a really swanky day, check in here and enjoy its stunning 64-metre infinity pool, exclusive Member’s Lounge, a restaurant/bar, gym and tennis courts. You can visit for the day and watch the ‘yachties’ come and go, or make this the base for your holiday by renting one of their apartments. See portomontenegro.com

Montenegro really is a little gem – a country of just 620,000 people, and one of those rare places where you can ski in the morning and sunbathe on the beach in the afternoon. It has a huge amount to offer – just get there soon.