Sveti Stefan

Interesting facts

In return for Venetian protection from 1423, the Paštrovići kept wide self-rule and paid no tribute, but had to stop raiding Venetian ships.

The story that Ottoman loot paid for the walls was recorded by the 19th-century Montenegrin writer Stjepan Mitrov Ljubiša.

The fortified village was razed during the Ottoman–Venetian war of 1570–1573 and rebuilt only after repeated pleas from the Paštrovići.

The fortress was originally shared by just twelve families, before a village of some 400 people grew up inside the walls in the 1800s.

After the island became a hotel, the Yugoslav authorities turned one of its churches, belonging to the Praskvica Monastery, into a casino.

Earlier guests of the island hotel included Orson Welles, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Margaret.

Andrea Bocelli sang on the island on 13 July 2010, Montenegro's Statehood Day, to mark fifty years of the hotel.

Villa Miločer, the royal summer residence built in 1934–1936, stands in grounds of about 32 hectares planted with some 800 olive trees.

Why it is worth it

Sveti Stefan is the postcard of the Montenegrin coast: a walled village of red-roofed stone houses covering an islet of about 1.2 hectares, tied to the shore by a narrow sandy tombolo, between Budva and Petrovac. From the road above it the whole thing reads as one piece of architecture floating on the Adriatic, and that view — free, open to everyone — is the main reason to come.

It began as a fortified refuge of the Paštrovići clan, who placed themselves under Venetian protection in 1423. Local tradition says the walls were paid for with loot taken from Ottoman ships during the siege of Kotor in 1539, and that each of the Paštrovići families had a house inside. By the 19th century about 400 people lived here, but emigration and war emptied it, and by 1954 only twenty remained. The Yugoslav government moved them to the mainland and turned the whole village into a luxury hotel whose guest list ran from Sophia Loren and Kirk Douglas to Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, who played chess here.

The island is still a hotel, run by Aman under a long lease that also covers Villa Miločer — the 1930s summer residence of Queen Marija of Yugoslavia, set among olive trees — and the beaches alongside. The pink-sand beaches either side of the causeway, and the coastal path north towards Budva, are the way to enjoy it without a booking.

Getting there

Sveti Stefan is about 6 km south-east of Budva along the coast road, and there is a coastal walking route from Budva through Bečići and Rafailovići. Tivat Airport (TIV) is about 22 km away.

Sveti Stefan

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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