We woke on this morning to a rare sight in summertime Montenegro – a layer of cloud hiding the previously relentless sun. It was still hot (by UK standards) but thunderstorms were on the weather forecast, so we decided to visit Porto Montenegro, a new marina that’s being heavily advertised in the region at the moment.
We had no idea what was at Porto Montenegro and just expected to look around a few boats and maybe get some lunch in a waterside restaurant or cafe.
Turns out it’s actually a mega-yacht marina and, on entering, the first sight we were greeted with was a row of insanely huge super-yachts.
These are quite a sight, really not something you see every day and we spent ages just gawping at them, almost unable to comprehend their incredible size and luxury.
By the time we got here, the clouds had pretty much gone and the threatened storms never materialised; the familiar beating hot sun and blue skies were back and heating us up as we wandered around what is a very beautiful, luxurious marina development, lined with designer shops (clearly aimed more at the super-yacht owners than at the likes of us) and several restaurants, bars and cafes, some of which are predictably expensive, but others which are actually not unreasonably priced.
With the midday sun hotting up, we decided we needed a beach so we could cool down again. It would’ve been nice to have stayed visiting Porto Montenegro for lunch, or indeed to have visited again for dinner as the setting and surroundings for an evening meal are ideal, but by this point of the holiday we’d decided we wanted to do a white-water rafting excursion at the end of the week, so needed to save as much of our remaining Euros as possible for that.
So instead we drove 5-minutes down the road, alongside the runway of Tivat airport, to the nearby Kalardovo beach.
Kalardovo Beach
This is another small local beach similar to Plavi Horizonti in that it’s less crowded than the big Budva Riviera beaches, has plenty of car parking right next to the beach and a good, cordoned off, shallow and safe swimming zone.
There’s a restaurant here, where we got a snack for lunch, though it seemed we had to wait a long time to get served considering it was quite empty and we only had a small order.
This beach is right next to the runway of Tivat airport and planes are landing and taking off right next to you as you lay on the beach.
It’s not exactly the most memorable beach you’ll visit in your lifetime, but it did the job for the afternoon cooling off in a convenient location only about 15-minutes’ drive or so from our apartment in Kotor.