Tour Guide, Kotor, Montenegro
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Sveti Stefan, unique city – hotel, that use to be fishing village and its first neighbour Miločer, former Royal summer house today turned into a villa hotel as well, are true jewels of Montenegrin coast. The story of Sveti Stefan emergence is very unusual and interesting. It is related to XV century, when Ottoman galleons sailed into the bay with the intention to rob and enslave the coastal towns in Boka Kotorska. Pastrovići, people who inhabit the region of Sveti Stefan for centuries, went in Kotor with intention to attack Ottoman army and help in defense of Kotor. On return, they have attacked Ottoman galleons, and got great spoils of war. They used it to build fortification on the rocky island near the coast with twelve houses inside the walls, each house belonging to one family of the Pastrovići tribe. They also built a church named after a saint called Sveti Stefan. And that is how this unique island was born, and later is connected to the coastline by a narrow isthmus and became a semi island. Its main purpose at the beginning was to be used as a place for protection from the enemies and shelter for women, chidren and old people, as well as for food and groceries.In ancient writings Sveti Stefan is known as the "place of justice". Sveti Stefan was growing from small fortress and shelter to town and a meeting place, undergoing major development in the first half of the XIX century when it consisted of 100 houses, three churches and 400 inhabitants. In 1957 the reconstruction of this little island village turned into unique city-hotel in 1957. Exterior of the stone houses retained its authenticity and its interior was decorated and turned into luxury apartments. The remaining twenty residents evicted from the island are the founders of today's modern settlement on the mainland, also called Sveti Stefan.