Why Montenegro Is One to Watch and Why the Most Interesting Address on the Bay Is a 300-Year-Old Venetian Lazaret

By The Modern Luxury | Lazure Hotel & Marina, Bay of Kotor

There is a particular kind of discovery that happens before a destination becomes famous. Before the magazine covers multiply. Before the queues form. Before someone calls it "the new Amalfi" and ruins it with the comparison.

Montenegro is still in that window.

Just barely.

The Country Everyone Is About to Know

It is, for the moment, the most interesting corner of the Adriatic that most luxury travellers have not yet visited and the numbers confirm what seasoned travel professionals have been whispering for the past two years. In 2026, Montenegro is attracting millions of international visitors, drawn by unspoiled landscapes, cultural richness, and a commitment to sustainable tourism that larger Mediterranean destinations can no longer credibly claim.

The world's major hotel groups have noticed. Hilton, Hyatt, Melia, Radisson and Iberostar have all set their sights on the Montenegrin coast, with significant developments in exclusive enclaves along the Bay of Kotor. A Mövenpick has just opened. The infrastructure is being upgraded, air connections are multiplying. Montenegro is now connected by more than 130 destinations with direct flights from both international airports and visitors from Western Europe, the United States, China and Israel are all arriving in increasing numbers.

But this isn't a story about what's coming. It's about what's already here; specifically, what's already here and has been for three centuries.

The Bay of Kotor: Europe's Only Fjord South of Scandinavia

Before you can understand Lazure, you need to understand the Bay of Kotor. Nothing about this destination makes sense until you see it and then very little else makes sense again.

Boka Kotorska is a UNESCO-listed gem: a fjord-like bay where dramatic cliffs plunge into turquoise waters, surrounded by rugged mountains and scattered with medieval towns whose cobbled streets still carry the scent of sea salt and centuries of maritime history.

The bay stretches 30 kilometres inland. The mountains that flank it rise almost vertically from the water, Mount Orjen to the north, its flanks still dusted with snow while the oleanders bloom below. The light here is different to anywhere else on the Adriatic. Filtered and pooled by the surrounding peaks, it turns the water a particular shade of blue-green in the mornings that photographers spend whole careers attempting to recreate.

As overcrowding continues to challenge some of Europe's most famous destinations, Kotor is benefiting from growing interest among travellers who want a more immersive and less congested coastal escape. It is, in the bluntest possible terms, what Croatia was before everyone found out about Croatia and the window to experience it at its most unspoiled is closing faster than the destination wants to admit.

The Most Interesting Building on the Bay

Midway along the shore, in the village of Meljine near Herceg Novi, there is a building whose walls have watched everything.

They watched the Venetian Republic take control of the bay in 1687. They watched merchants arrive from three continents, their ships carrying silk, spice, and occasionally plague. They weathered an earthquake of enormous destructive power in 1979 without losing a stone. And in 2018, after a decade of careful, painstaking restoration, they opened their doors again, this time as Lazure Hotel & Marina.

The history of Lazure is the history of the Bay of Kotor compressed into a single address.

Built between 1729 and 1732 as a Venetian lazaret; a quarantine station for incoming traders, the complex sat at the literal sea gate of the city. Everything and everyone arriving by water had to pass through it. Merchants from the Ottoman Empire, Adriatic sea captains, goods en route to Venice from the Levant, all of them paused within these walls. The building was granted free port status. It had its own chapel, the Chapel of St Roch, its own water fountain fed by a mountain spring, its own walled courtyard that served as the administrative centre of the entire region.

For nearly three hundred years, the lazaret traded functions: quarantine station, military building, children's summer camp, abandoned relic. In 2014, investors recognised what the locals had always known, that this was one of the most architecturally significant sites on the Adriatic coast. In 2015, restoration began. And in 2018, one of the most unusual and quietly extraordinary luxury hotels in Europe was born.

What Lazure Actually Is

Arriving at Lazure is unlike arriving anywhere else.

The 18th-century Venetian building is the heart of the complex, its ancient stone courtyard now covered by a soaring glass ceiling that floods the original space with light. The Chapel of St Roch has been meticulously restored; a Venetian fresco discovered behind the plaster in 2015 was painstakingly recreated by the artist Nino Radoš. The fountain still flows. The architecture firm OMORIKA has walked the finest possible line between preservation and contemporary comfort, keeping the bones of a 300-year-old building intact while hiding every modern convenience behind them.

The rooms and suites look out over the Bay of Kotor. The marina with 156 mooring places for yachts of all sizes, curves along the waterfront in front. The grounds hold centuries-old pine trees, palms, cycads, citrus, lavender and rosemary. It smells, at certain moments on certain mornings, precisely like what it is: one of the oldest and most beautiful corners of the Adriatic, recently returned to life.

Dining at Lazure is a destination in itself. The flagship Rosemarine Restaurant offers carefully crafted Mediterranean dishes with Asian and Middle Eastern inflections, executed with haute cuisine precision. The Augusto Terrace provides all-day casual dining with waterfront views. The Rocco Lounge Bar occupies a two-hundred-year-old restored chapel within the main lobby, a bar with a more interesting past than most hotels in Europe. A beach bar, a bakery, a buffet restaurant with a park terrace: the property has thought carefully about every hour of the guest's day.

Experiences reach into the bay and beyond. Sea voyages explore the Blue Cave, a luminous, hidden grotto accessible only by water. The soul of Boka Bay unfolds on guided boat journeys through the most dramatic reaches of the fjord. Land voyages take guests into Herceg Novi and along the trails of Mount Orjen. Wine appreciation sessions draw on Montenegro's quietly exceptional vineyards. The hotel's MICHELIN Guide listing is not a surprise; it is, in every sense, earned.

The Case for Recommending Montenegro Now

Here is the thing that travel professionals who have visited Montenegro come back saying, consistently and without exception: I wished I'd come sooner.

Not because it will be worse later, Montenegro is investing carefully in its product and has no intention of becoming a mass tourism destination. But because the version of this country that exists right now, in 2026, has a quality that is genuinely rare: it combines dramatic coastline and high-end resorts with an authenticity and intimacy that is increasingly difficult to find anywhere in the Mediterranean.

Your clients who want beauty without the crowds. The ones who reference the Amalfi Coast and then quietly admit it's become impossible. The ones who want history that feels lived-in rather than curated. The ones who want to arrive somewhere on a superyacht and feel that the destination deserves them.

"Montenegro and specifically, a 300-year-old Venetian lazaret on the edge of the world's most beautiful fjord-bay, is the answer."

Plan Your Visit

For travel advisor enquiries and client booking assistance, contact The Modern Luxury at sales@themodernluxury.co.uk

Lazure Hotel & Marina

The Modern Luxury represents Lazure Hotel & Marina across global travel trade markets. We work directly with travel advisors to facilitate bookings, provide familiarisation trips, and ensure your clients receive an exceptional experience from first enquiry to final checkout.