Njeguši

Njegusi is a village on the Lovcen plateau at about 900 m, on the old road between Kotor and Cetinje. It is roughly 45 minutes up the serpentines from the bay, inside Lovcen national park, and consists of a handful of stone hamlets around a green karst field.

For two things: it is the ancestral village of the Petrovic Njegos dynasty that ruled Montenegro, and it gives its name to the country's best-known cured ham. Petar II Petrovic Njegos, the prince-bishop and poet, was born here in 1813.

Ham salted, smoked over beech and then air-dried in the draught that crosses the plateau — the combination of sea and mountain air is credited with the flavour. It is served in paper-thin slices, usually with the local cheese in oil and a glass of rakija.

Yes. The family house in the village is open as a small museum, with period rooms and objects relating to the dynasty. It is modest, which is the point: it shows how plainly the rulers of Montenegro actually lived.

The road from Kotor is the attraction as much as the village — twenty-five hairpins with the bay opening below at every turn. It is narrow and slow, and best driven uphill from Kotor rather than down, which is also how most traffic runs.

An hour or two. Eat, see the house, walk out into the field, then continue to Cetinje or up to the Njegos mausoleum. Most people combine it with Lovcen in a single day out from the coast.