The Sunday Times April 3, 2022 17Home
favourable, the weather is
superb and there’s plenty to
do. It blows my mind that in
winter, when it’s 16 or 17C
by Boka Bay, I can go skiing
within two hours in the
Montenegrin mountains. The
people are so friendly and
everything is extremely cheap.
Last night I had a top quality
burger for €2.50. Tivat is the
expat hub, popular with
digital nomads too.”
Bonnett is renting in Tivat
although he plans to buy a
two-bedroom apartment one
hour south of Kotor Bay with
sea and mountain views for
€55,000, less than a similar
property on the bay would be.
“Kotor Bay has something
for every budget, from studio
apartments for €60,000 up
to waterfront stone Venetian
palaces from €5 million,”
Kieran Kelleher of Savills
associates Dream Estates
Montenegro says. “There are
three distinct markets, with
different prices per square
metre: resorts such as Porto
Montenegro and Lustica Bay
with apartments from €4,000,
off-resort apartments from
€2,000 or sea-front homes on
Kotor Bay from €3,000.
Tivat, once an
unremarkable naval town, is
the hottest area now thanks to
the Porto Montenegro effect,
with prices moving from
the lowest on the Adriatic ten
years ago to the highest
average in Montenegro today.”
Porto Montenegro is theT
he Bay of Kotor,
immediately south
of Croatia in
Montenegro, is
one of the most
spectacular stretches of
European coastline. It’s a
sheltered fjord of outrageous
natural beauty where steep
mountains plunge down to the
Adriatic and narrow ribbons of
charming stone villages line
the waterfront.
A perfect spot for boating
whatever the size of your
vessel, with modern facilities
that knock the socks off
most Mediterranean marinas
plus tax-free fuel — it’s
easy to see the appeal for
superyacht owners.
Every morning Anthony
Bonnett walks to a café on the
Tivat waterfront, orders a
coffee and practises his
Montenegrin conversational
skills with the ever-
encouraging staff. Last week,
from his table overlooking the
stunning marina, he counted
15 superyachts in the harbour.
“That was significantly fewer
than in January,” he says.
The magnificent deep-
water harbour of Porto
Montenegro is a frequent
berth for many ultra-wealthy
yacht owners, including
the Russian oligarchs Roman
Abramovich and Oleg
Deripaska. But since
Montenegro announced plans
to follow the EU’s lead on
Russian sanctions the number
of superyachts has fallen, withAbramovich’s Solaris reported
to have departed in haste last
month. For Deripaska these
plans must be even more
galling. He was one of the
original investors in Porto
Montenegro in 2007, a former
Yugoslavian shipyard turned
luxury resort with a five-star
Regent hotel, 320 apartments
and 70 shops, restaurants,
cafés and amenities.
Bonnett, 51, moved to Tivat
in November 2021. He and his
wife, Simone, originally from
South Africa, had lived near
Oxford since 2007 but with
their youngest daughter about
to finish school decided to
relocate to Montenegro.
“As a business consultant
I can work remotely and
considered moving to Spain or
France, but Brexit made that
more onerous,” he says. “In
Montenegro you can register a
company and get temporary
residency. The tax rates arelargest superyacht home port
in the Mediterranean. It was
the first marina in the world to
win elite platinum status in
2017, and last year was voted
the world’s best superyacht
marina by crew and captains.
A walk around the 461 berths
(another 390 are planned)
provides a jaw-dropping view
of sea-going splendour.
Now owned by the
Investment Corporation of
Dubai, Porto Montenegro set
the tone for Kotor Bay’s
elevation to the top league of
Mediterranean holiday
hotspots and has been joined
by other large-scale resorts.
Lustica Bay, a huge 1,700-
acre project where homes
start from €315,000 for a 47 sq
m studio, has sold more than
500 apartments, townhouses
and villas to buyers of 46
nationalities. The newest
arrival is Portonovi at the
entrance to Kotor Bay. This 64-
acre site has 218 properties for
sale, priced from €530,000 for
one to four-bedroom homes
and including Montenegro’s
first branded residences,
10 One & Only Private Homes,
from €9.8 million.
These resorts have
internationally renowned
five-star hotels — the Chedi
at Lustica and One & Only at
Portonovi — and extensive
leisure facilities including
glamorous marinas. And they
continue to expand: Porto
Montenegro’s newest
neighbourhood, Boka Place,
is planned for 2023 with a
further 213 homes, while at
Lustica Bay, Centrale — a hub
of restaurants, businesses and
shops — opens this summer.
International interest
focuses on Kotor Bay but
Montenegro, a country
smaller than Northern Ireland
with four Unesco World
Heritage Sites, has exceptional
rugged natural beauty inland.
Ben and Emma Heywood,
who left Norwich in 2004,
now own the adventure
company Undiscovered
Montenegro on Lake Skadar,
the largest lake in the Balkans,
near the border with Albania.
“We bought a ruin in a
natural park in 2008 and
spent two and a half years
renovating it and building our
own house next door,” Ben
says. “We use the renovated
house for our company,
helping guests explore
Montenegro. This is a magical
area, filled with waterfalls,
rivers and mountains. It feels
remote yet we’re only 25
minutes from the capital.
Montenegro is an amazing
country. It’s given us a lifestyle
we love in a beautiful place.”PLAIN SAILING
With its glitzy yachts, luxury resorts and homes
for all budgets, Montenegro’s Kotor Bay is the
underrated jewel of the Med, says Cathy Hawker
MONTENEGROSERBIAALBANIAPodgorica
CROATIAADRIATIC SEABay of Kotor
30 milesThe tax rates are
favourable, the
weather is superb
and there’s plenty
to do. Tivat is the
expat hub, popular
with digital
nomads tooThe marina in Porto Montenegro, which has been
transformed into a residential and retail developmentPRCANJ
€1.8M
Villa Aquarius is
a four-bedroom
house with pool in
the quiet village of
Prcanj overlooking
Kotor Bay, 5km
from the medieval
town of Kotor
and a 20-minute
drive from Tivat.
dreammonte
negro.comDOBROTA
€295,000
A two-bedroom
first-floor flat in the
Kotor suburb of
Dobrota, just 50m
from the sea, with
stunning views
towards the Perast
Islands and a 15-
minute drive from
Tivat airport.
dreammonte
negro.comGIVAGA/GETTY IMAGES; IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY; ZORAN RADONJIC