Podgorica

Podgorica makes no great claims on the traveller — flattened in the Second World War and rebuilt as socialist Titograd, Montenegro's capital is a low-rise, leafy city of riverside cafes, wide boulevards and the odd Ottoman relic in the old Stara Varos quarter.

What it offers instead is position: within an hour you can be drifting among the pelicans of Lake Skadar, climbing to the cliff-face monastery of Ostrog, or dropping down to the fjord-like Bay of Kotor and the Adriatic beaches.

Montenegrins are laid-back to the point of philosophy — there is even a tongue-in-cheek local code praising the art of doing nothing — and fiercely hospitable once you sit down.

Eat smoked Njegusi ham and fresh river fish, sip a strong domestic wine or rakija, and let the slow pace win you over.