STUDY TRIP MONTENEGRO
Montenegro, 16.-20.9.2021.
In the middle of September 2021, a team of female landscape architects from all over Croatia gathered to make another professional trip together for the purpose of exchanging opinions and experiences, with the ultimate goal of achieving new knowledge and a new work ethic. The chosen destination was Montenegro, and the emphasis was placed on getting to know new forms of construction of tourist resorts, which were not present in Europe until the construction of this resort.
Namely, in Boka Kotorska, near the city of Herceg Novi, we visited the newly opened complex in Kumbor – Porto Novi, which ranked this quiet seaside place among one of the most luxurious places on the Montenegrin coast where Porto Montenegro, Luštica Bay and the town hotel Sveti Stefan still stand out. Porto Novi spread over almost 250,000 square meters, where the central hotel facilities and associated villas, beaches, several swimming pools, bars and wellness facilities are now located.
What makes Porto Novi special is one of the top 5 hotel chains in the world, One & Only, which represents an ultra-luxury brand built for the first time in Europe in Montenegro and opened on May 1, 2021. The hotels, resorts and villas of this hotel group (One&Only), synonymous with luxury, are located in the most inspiring places in the world, chosen for their exceptional beauty and unique cultural charm, from the Maldives and Mauritius, through Cape Town to Mexico and Dubai, in destinations which take your breath away. As Lord Byron once said the same about the Bay of Kotor, which everyone who comes here for the first time can see for themselves, the reason for choosing this particular location is not surprising. We were interested in this new form of tourist service from the point of view of its impact on space and landscape design resulting from the new form of the resort and its target users who have great payment possibilities and specific demands, tastes and needs. The purpose of this motivating trip was to acquaint us with the accompanying contents for the purpose of tourism, such as agriculture and natural resources and the inevitable gastronomy.
Resorts One & Only around the world are designed to reflect the styles and influence of the indigenous environment. Each resting place represents local traditions, people and crafts and has its own distinctive life and energy. The resort is surrounded by stone towns, with a backdrop of wild coastal mountains with private sandy beaches for guests and a revolutionary wellness experience with Chenot Espace, and the superb cuisine of Giorgio Locatelli with a Michelin star and the flavors of Montenegro and Mediterranean. The resort is also specific in that it offers ten different villas for purchase according to the environment, size and facilities, so that some villas have a private beach, a roof garden, dock for boats, individual swimming pools, play areas according to age groups, panoramic views, own yard and private gardens, and some offer complete seclusion and privacy.
When designing the villas, the designers took into account culture, history and geography destination, so each residence is designed to include large facades, magnificent colonnades and terracotta roofs with gables, symbolic of Montenegrin architecture. The average size of the villas is 15,000 m2.
The interiors are stylized, inspired by the baroque palaces of Kotor and the nearby port of Perast, and the owners were given the opportunity to adapt the interior to their own taste in order to became a real home like one’s own. The resort offers wellness – Chenot Espace, an area of 4,000 square meters with facilities for hydrotherapy and cryotherapy, sauna and steam rooms, indoor pool and relaxation areas, using the famous Chenot method®.
We are happy that we were among the first visitors and had the opportunity to see this newly built resort, which opened just before the summer season, and which opened up new horizons for us as landscape architects and enabled new knowledge.
Urban agglomerations – Perast – a baroque stone town, the island of Gospa od Škrpjela, the isthmus of Verige and the urban jewel – Kotor – a UNESCO city – with magnificent walls and romantic Mediterranean alleys, built in gray stone and paved in the kind of stone that raining turns into pink colour. Although it is often compared to Dubrovnik, which is built of white stone, Kotor nevertheless represents a unique fairy tale of this specific fjord – the extremely indented bay of Boka Kotorska.
We also got acquainted with the rural landscape in the area of Lake Skadar, a region known for the production of top quality wines, more precisely with the Mrkan winery located in the village of Rvaši at an altitude of 300 m, with an interesting warm Mediterranean climate and an open landscape.
Special mention should be made of Lovćen, the strength of spirit, personality (Njegoš, Meštrović) and nature, Rijeka Crnojevića as a specific landscape. high mountains and the Tara river canyon, Biogradsko and Pivsko jezero, and especially the entire Durmitor National Park, which is a special experience, takes your breath away.
And for the end
After the confrontation of modern tourist areas, historic cities, rural landscapes and untouched wild nature follows our conclusion: We must be very careful in implementation megalomaniacal tourist systems into our Croatian landscape of a small sample, so that a series of devastated abandoned spaces would not happen, “a fist in the eye” (example Haludovo) with dead artificial “tourist towns” without a soul – in other words – consumed and discarded “toys”. Not to be late.
