Apart Hotel Larimar ★★★★

Kitchenettes, a Pool and the Sea Four Hundred Metres Down

Bečići is the long beach immediately north of Budva, and the hillside behind it is where the town does its living rather than its posing. Apart Hotel Larimar sits up there, a modern block with a pool in front of it and the water a four-hundred-metre walk below. The premise is straightforward and slightly unfashionable: every room has a kitchen, the car goes underground, and there is a laundry room you can use at eleven at night. Nobody is trying to impress you at reception. What the house sells is the ability to stay put for a week or two without eating out twice a day.

Why It Works

Two things put this on our list. The first is the kitchenette in every room, fully fitted rather than a kettle and a token hob, which changes what a stay with an animal looks like: you can feed a dog on its own schedule and eat on yours. The second is the underground parking, which on this coast in summer is not a detail but a decision. Add a self-service laundry, a pool with a proper terrace and a desk that will organise a transfer or a day out, and you have a base rather than a room.

Why This Location

The address buys distance in both directions. You are four kilometres from Budva, close enough to walk into the old town in the evening or drive it in minutes, far enough that the noise of the promenade stays down there. The nearest pebble beach is four hundred metres downhill. Kotor and its bay are twenty-four kilometres up the coast, which makes a comfortable half day, and Tivat airport is twenty-six, so arrivals are short. For an animal, the useful part is the hillside itself: quiet residential lanes and pine above the resort strip, walkable at either end of the day.

Fast Facts

• Price: Mid-range

• Vibe: Modern, practical, unpretentious seaside

• Rooms: Around forty, every one with a fitted kitchenette

• Best For: Self-catering families, longer Adriatic stays, travellers arriving by car with a dog

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The self-service laundry and ironing room, the detail that turns a week into a fortnight

• Dining: Kitchenettes in every room; the front desk points you to the tables worth walking to

• Amenities: Outdoor pool and terrace, private underground parking, 24-hour reception, laundry and ironing room, transfers and excursions, dogs welcome

• Attractions: The pebble beach four hundred metres downhill; Budva old town, four kilometres; Kotor and its bay, twenty-four kilometres

Rooms That Come With a Kitchen

The apartments are the product here, and they are equipped rather than styled: a kitchenette with the full set of what you actually need, air conditioning for the summer months, a wardrobe that takes two weeks of clothes, a shower room. Family rooms take the larger parties. It is a modern building, so the rooms are square and light rather than characterful, and the balconies are what give them their view. Ask about aspect when you book, since the hillside means some face the sea and others face the slope.

The Pool, the Terrace and the Middle of the Day

The pool and its terrace are the social centre of the house, and on this coast they earn their place: the beach is best early and late, and the hours in between are better spent above the road. The terrace has proper seating rather than a row of loungers, which makes it a place to eat lunch out of your own kitchen. Reception runs around the clock, so late arrivals off an evening flight into Tivat are straightforward.

Practicalities for a Dog on the Adriatic

Dogs are accepted, and the layout is on your side: your own kitchen, your own washing machine, a car park under the building and a hillside of quiet lanes for the early walk. Two things to plan. Montenegrin beaches vary in what they allow in high season, so ask the desk which stretch below the hotel is workable before you set off with an animal. And confirm your dog directly when you reserve, since the house is small enough to handle it case by case rather than by policy page.