Sveti Stefan, Serbia and Montenegro — IN Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," a young woman finds herself shipwrecked on a strange coast. "What country, friends, is this?" she asks.
Scholars speculate -- and I like to think -- that she landed on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro, a place as little known to many people today as it was to Shakespeare's poor, lost Viola.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday October 11, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 30 words Type of Material: Correction
Montenegrin church -- An Oct. 2 article in the Travel section on Montenegro incorrectly identified the church atop the island Hotel Sveti Stefan as Greek Orthodox. It is Serbian Orthodox.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday October 16, 2005 Home Edition Travel Part L Page 3 Features Desk 0 inches; 30 words Type of Material: Correction
Montenegrin church -- An Oct. 2 article on Montenegro ("Understudy to the Riviera") incorrectly identified the church atop the island Hotel Sveti Stefan as Greek Orthodox. It is Serbian Orthodox.
A few intrepid travelers came here for suntans and seafood in the Soviet era, when Montenegro was a part of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and hotel rooms were a steal. But the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, of which Serbia and Montenegro were a part, in the early 1990s, followed by a dark decade of ethnic cleansing and war, virtually erased the region from the tourist map.
Now, with peace restored and all but two of the six republics that made up the former Yugoslavia independent, vacationers have started returning to the southern Balkans.
The coast of Croatia, just northwest of Montenegro, became Europe's hot beach spot a few years ago. Then -- in the inevitable way of flash fame -- it became increasingly crowded and pricey. Adventurous, cost-conscious vacationers began looking to forgotten little Montenegro, about the size of Connecticut and with a population of around 670,000.
Last spring, I clipped an item from the French newspaper Le Figaro touting Montenegro as the next eastern Mediterranean beach destination. The article promised haunting medieval towns like Kotor, rugged mountains, dreamy beaches and low prices compared with those on the French Riviera and Italy's Amalfi Coast.
I also was interested to learn that Montenegro enjoys a beach season that starts as early as April and lingers into October.
So, I reasoned, if I went in September, when most Europeans were back at work after summer vacation, I could return with a fresh, head-turning tan, not to mention leftover money.
But my four-day visit to Montenegro in early September was mostly due to Shakespeare, who depicted the country as a wild, romantic place where marvelous things can happen. Such things stick in the minds of travelers like me, who take trips to find out whether the real place resembles the imagined one. The truth is seldom unalloyed, as I discovered in Montenegro.
