What is what
| Beach | Status | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Sveti Stefan north side | Public | Free, or €20–30 for sunbeds |
| Sveti Stefan south side | Hotel-managed | Often closed to non-guests |
| Miločer beach | Mixed — part public | €30 – €60 for sunbeds |
| Queen's Beach (Kraljičina plaža) | Hotel | €100+ for two beds |
| Pržno village beach | Public | €20 – €30, and free at the ends |
The walk
From the causeway at Sveti Stefan, take the shoreline path north into the park. It runs under mature pines with the water a few metres away, comes out at Miločer beach after about ten minutes, and continues another fifteen to Queen's Beach.
Fifteen minutes further and you are in Pržno, a small fishing village with restaurants on the water and a public beach that costs a third of what Miločer costs.
That walk is the best thing here and it costs nothing. Doing it in the early evening, when the sunbed operations are packing up, is better still.
Is Queen's Beach worth it
It is a pretty crescent of pink-tinged pebble under pines, and the water is the same water as the free beach four hundred metres away. Two sunbeds and a parasol run into three figures in August.
People pay it. Whether it is worth it depends entirely on whether the point of the day is the beach or the fact of being on that beach.
Pržno, which is the answer
A working village of a few hundred people at the northern end of the park. Fishing boats pulled up on the shingle, three or four restaurants where the fish is priced normally, and a beach with a free section at either end.
It is five minutes from Sveti Stefan and about a fifth of the price of everything around it, because it is a village rather than a resort.
Practical
- Parking at Sveti Stefan and Pržno, €2 – €3 an hour, full by ten in August
- The bus between Budva and Petrovac stops on the main road above, a five-minute walk down
- No shade on the beaches, plenty in the park
- Water shoes — it is all pebble
- The photograph of Sveti Stefan is taken from the road above, not from any of these beaches
The history
The villa at Miločer was the summer residence of Queen Marija Karađorđević, built in 1934, and the park was planted around it with species brought from across the Mediterranean. Sveti Stefan itself was a fishing village until the 1950s, when the state moved the residents out and made the whole island a hotel.
That hotel has been closed for years in a dispute with the state over — among other things — public access to these beaches. Which is why the rope is where it is.
