Sveti Stefan, the most photographed islet on the Adriatic

Few images of Montenegro get used as often as Sveti Stefan, and it’s easy to see why. An islet packed with stone houses and red roofs, tied to the coast by a tongue of sand with a beach either side. What many people don’t realise before they go is that the island isn’t a village you wander round but a hotel, so it pays to plan around what you actually can see.

From Paštrovići refuge to hotel-town

The Budva tourist board explains that the houses on the islet went up more than five centuries ago to shelter people from the nearby villages against pirates and Ottoman raids. Tradition has it that the Paštrovići fortified it in 1442 with loot from Ottoman galleys and built twelve houses, one per clan. It was the district’s trading hub and, for almost three hundred years, the seat of the Bankada, its court. The name comes from the church at the top, dedicated to St Stephen, and there are two more on the island, the Transfiguration and St Alexander Nevsky. It remained a fishing village until the mid-1950s, when its conversion began, and on 13 July 1960 it opened as a hotel-town.

Who came here

For decades this was the place to be seen. The Budva tourist board names Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti, Alberto Moravia, André Malraux, Kirk Douglas, Monica Vitti, Sylvester Stallone, Yuri Gagarin and the chess players Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer. The national tourist board adds that the Beckhams, Robert De Niro and Claudia Schiffer have summered at Sveti Stefan and Miločer.

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The island today

These days the island and Villa Miločer make up the Aman Sveti Stefan. According to its website, the island opens seasonally and the villa all year, with the current island season ending on 31 October 2026 and resuming on 1 May 2027. The hotel describes it as a private island, and nothing official I’ve read says whether non-residents can go in, so I’d rather not promise it. If you fancy treating yourself, I cover it under Aman Sveti Stefan.

The two sandbar beaches

What is open to everyone are the two beaches either side of the sandbar, east and west. The Budva tourist board describes them as sand with pinkish and reddish tones and clear water, about 1,170 metres between them, while the national tourist board measures them at 700 and 400 metres. They’re among the prettiest on the coast, and no official source publishes lounger prices or access rules. For alternatives, see beaches in Budva.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Sveti Stefan on GetYourGuide.

Around Sveti Stefan

Immediately north are Miločer park and the royal family’s beaches, which I describe under Pržno. To the south come the coves of Crvena glavica and Drobni pijesak. And inland, a few kilometres away, is Praskvica monastery, with a 1413 charter from Balša III, with Rustovo and Duljevo a little higher up. The village of Sveti Stefan had 325 residents in the preliminary 2023 census.

Getting there

Without a car, the easy option is the town bus from the roundabout on Mediteranska Street in Budva. From six in the morning to ten at night there’s one every ten minutes, then every 15 to 30 minutes until 01:30, and it calls at the riviera villages along the way, from Bečići to Miločer. To see where it fits on the wider coast, start with the Budva Riviera.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Sveti Stefan for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.