From the start, there were problems. I had only the vaguest notion of where the country was and couldn't locate a guidebook that covered it. I did find the website for the National Tourist Organization of Montenegro and then an office for Montenegro Airlines, from which I bought a round-trip ticket from Paris to Podgorica, Montenegro's administrative capital, about 40 miles from the coast.
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Understudy to the Riviera
Montenegro may lack polish, but its setting and prices make a trip to the Balkans worth it.
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.
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The ticket agent gave me the name of a travel agency in Montenegro -- Luminalis -- that arranged my airport transfers and accommodations. I was offered a double at a small, new hotel in the seafront town of Sveti Stefan for about $60 a night.
The price was right, but I had my heart set on the most storied place on the coast, the Hotel Sveti Stefan, occupying its own little island and connected to the town by a causeway. It was formerly a medieval fortress, then a fishing village before it was converted into a hotel in the late 1950s. It briefly upstaged places like St. Tropez as a glamorous hideaway for such movie stars as Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.
The travel agency warned me that the government-owned Hotel Sveti Stefan was no longer up to VIP snuff. But the price for a single, with breakfast and dinner, was about $130. That didn't seem too much, given that visitors who aren't hotel guests must pay $7 just to see the place, one of the main tourist attractions on Montenegro's 175 miles of coast.
Then came a few unsettling omens. To pay the travel agency, I had to wire funds to the agency's bank from mine, because credit-card transactions aren't yet secure in Montenegro. And right before I left, I read that a crony of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, indicted on war-crimes charges, had just been arrested in Budva, near Sveti Stefan.
Balkan puzzle
IT was rainy and cold when I flew to Montenegro, a 2 1/2 -hour trip that ended with a stirring flyover across the virtually mountain-locked Bay of Kotor. On landing, I found bright sunshine at the diminutive Podgorica airport and a Luminalis agent waiting to take me to Sveti Stefan in his car.
On the way, we skirted the western side of wide Skadar Lake, half in Montenegro, half in Albania, one of the largest bodies of fresh water in Europe. We then crossed Montenegro's coastal range. It crests at little more than 6,000 feet but is stark and steep.
