25 Oct 2024by Lucy McGuire
Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay’s Ole Beach and Bar – an enticing spot at any time of the day
There’s drama in every sense of the word as we wend our way along the Bay of Kotor’s coastal road. Shortly after landing in what is Europe’s most mountainous country, this narrow driving route sandwiches me, my husband and two children between the rising slopes of the Dinaric Alps and the bay’s glittering waters in which bikini-clad sun worshippers dive from stone jetties.
In some parts, there’s a lack of any seawall. In others, motorists must take turns to edge their way through. It’s an everyday thoroughfare for locals living beside this staggering stretch of water – a sunken river bed that some playfully called “Europe’s southernmost fjord” – but it’s also among the world’s most scenic. I’ve not experienced an airport transfer quite like it.
It’s hard to believe that until recently, this small Balkan country and its Unesco-listed Bay of Kotor have been largely under the radar of British holidaymakers. But now, Montenegro and its eclectic attractions are easily reached thanks to tour operators like easyJet holidays, which sells packages and direct flights from Gatwick, Luton, Manchester and Bristol from May to October.
Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay Resort is around eight miles from Tivat Airport
Among easyJet holidays’ properties is the Miskovic family-owned Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay Resort, found on the bay’s longest shingle beach in Donji Stoliv, at the foot of Vrmac Mountain and around eight miles from Tivat Airport. Despite Covid hitting the year the then Blue Kotor Bay Premium Spa Resort opened, the family successfully grew their 100-bedroom business into a 252-unit five-star property. And while it remains privately owned, embarking on a partnership with the Hyatt hotel group last year has helped expand its client reach.
The development is a collection of low-level, waterfront apartments (one to four bedrooms), plus tasteful hotel rooms, suites, and apartments featuring natural wood and woven rattan cane. Our one-bedroom Apartment Deluxe comfortably fits our family of four, and the resort’s two large pools set a chic scene with their day beds and swim-up bar. The indoor pool – with arresting mountain views – handily welcomes children between noon and 4pm. During our stay, the team completes the final touches to a fourth function room, ideal for conferences and weddings. In 2025, the rooftop Hedonist Bar will open.
Health-conscious and R&R-seeking clients should check out the Spa Soul-branded spa – home to Montenegro’s only Turkish hammam – and its adjacent Health & Wellbeing Retreat De Mar Vrmac. On the site of a medical centre that operated in the 1970s, the retreat benefits from the healing combination of ion-rich sea air and mountain vapours which led to the Montenegrin government once declaring the area a “natural
climatic health resort”. Today, Dr Marina Delic and her team diagnose various stress, immune and respiratory-related conditions, using hi-tech equipment and outdoor activities to treat them.
The indoor pool welcomes children between 12-4pm
When it comes to hotel dining, there’s a lot on offer. There’s a veritable feast at Blue restaurant where my children breakfast on chocolate-filled krofne (doughnuts) and baklava-style pastries. At lunch, we dry off from our dips in the bay’s gentle waters to enjoy springy slices of pizza at Mediterranean-focused restaurant Ole!
Come evening, clients can try the sophisticated Lighthouse restaurant or return to Blue where traditional dishes like njeguski stek (cheese-stuffed pork) and brodet (fish stew) are served, buffet-style, alongside international flavours. The hotel’s client base spans business travellers, wedding parties, luxury-seeking couples and families looking beyond kids’-club style resorts. There’s a warm, personalised service, and executive chef Dhanushka Kumara comes out of the kitchen to check we have everything we need.
Montenegro’s fusion of East and West cultures becomes clear when our tour guide, Miro, takes us around Kotor’s fortified Old Town, around four miles from the hotel, explaining its turbulent past under the rule of Illyrians, Venetians, Byzantines and later, the Austrians, Russians and French.
Much like in Dubrovnik in neighbouring Croatia, its hefty walls encircle gleaming plazas, baroque churches, and astounding stone masonry. Encourage clients to explore its maze-like alleyways, uncovering merchants’ homes, still emblazoned with their family coats of arms. Among its big-hitting sights is St Tryphon’s Cathedral (entry €4pp) with its baroque-style bell towers and rose window. There’s also the 17th-century Clock Tower in the cafe-lined Square of the Arms and the memorabilia-filled Cats Museum (entry €1pp). My kids enjoy counting the hundreds of felines once brought here by sailors.
The Cats Museum, a cat lover’s paradise in Kotor Old Town © Lucy McGuire
If your clients are fit, recommend a hike along the 2.8-mile-long San Giovanni fortress walls which snake up the mountain slopes. Kotor is becoming a popular stopover for cruise ships, whose numbers reached a record high this year.
Advise clients to check the schedules ahead of visiting or come in the evening when the queues have abated, and the town becomes a twinkly haven of bazaars and diners chinking glasses of rakija (local brandy) and home-made wine.
STUNNING VIEWS
Quiet, history-filled Perast, is another great option. Its church-topped Our Lady of the Rocks islet features in many boat trips around the bay, as do sights like the Lustica Peninsula’s fortified Mamula Island, historic submarine tunnels and photogenic Blue Cave
For the most dizzying views over Kotor, visitors can’t miss the newly opened Kotor-Lovcen Cable Car (€23pp in peak season/€15pp off-peak), whose gondolas reward guests with sensational panoramas as they float for 2.4 miles up the birch and pine-dotted mountainside. This is Mount Lovcen which gave Montenegro its “black mountain”) name. At the top, hiking trails lead to lookout points and a new amphitheatre set to showcase live performances.
The view from Kotor-Lovcen Cable Car is not to be missed © Lucy McGuire
A pricey private minibus transfer drops visitors at a high ropes adventure park. My kids’ favourite attraction, aside from its uber-modern play structure, is the adrenaline-fuelled alpine coaster. I take a more relaxed approach, taking photos while breathing in the thyme-scented mountain air.
Back at the hotel spa, following a massage, I sit for a moment in the sauna while the hotel’s unofficial resident cat, who has many fans among both staff and guests, lazes outside in the nook of the circular window, a porthole to the arresting mountain views.
Holidays in Europe’s most peak-filled country can be as thrilling or as tranquil as visitors want it to be. Thanks to its adventure-filled mountains and unique bays it will, no doubt, edge that little bit closer to the spotlight in 2025.
Book it: EasyJet holidays offers seven nights’ B&B at the Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay Resort in Tivat from £1,391pp including 23kg of luggage, transfers and flights from Luton airport departing 5 May 2025; easyjet.com/en/holidays