Sveti Stefan, Montenegro

A new country! No, I didn't have any postcards from Montenegro before this week. Now I have a few, all thanks to kind postcrossers. I know embarrassingly little about the ex-Yugoslavian countries but the area has started to fascinate me. When I was in Finland I read an article about them in a magazine (where my sister's been doing illustrations), and it was really interesting.



Sveti Stefan (or "St. Stefan") is a seaside resort in western Montenegro, located 5 km southeast of Budva, on the Budva Riviera. It used to be a tidal island, but is now permanently connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. In the 15th century the island was a fishermen's village. In the 1950s the last residents of the village were evicted, and Sveti Stefan was transformed into a luxury town-hotel. The streets, walls, roofs and façades of the buildings were, for the most part, preserved, while the interior of the building were transformed to offer the most modern luxury hotel comfort.

Sofija who sent me this card tells me that many famous people have visited Sveti Stefan in the last 3 years, including Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, the Rolling Stones and the footballer Ronaldinho. I would've thought this kind of people would choose somewhere more obvious to go, although I can't blame them - the place does look incredibly pretty!



The stamp was issued earlier this year, that's about as much as I know about it..