Montenegro

Becici

Location: Yugoslavia (6km from Budva)
Village type: Tents
Year opened: 1953
Year closed: 1953

For the record: It was the Club's 4th village. After Alcudia in 1950, Baratti in 1951, Corfu in 52, 1953 was marked by the opening of Montenegro in a country still called Yugoslavia.

The opening of the village was announced after a long suspense on December 30, 1952. Montenegro was better known to some GMs and GOs as Becici, or Betchit-chi.

This so-called Polynesian Village consists of a few tents, the site is located in a completely wild place, resembling the end of the world, incredibly beautiful, but which had the only fault of being very steep. At the bottom, near the beach is the pole animation bar and dance floor, the restaurant and the commissary. Higher up, after crossing a road, are the tents, the sanitary facilities as well as the offices.
Henri Winter, Robert Baudin and Jean Feignoux managed somehow to set up the facilities before the village opened on May 23, 1953.

The expected success, however, did not come. There were several explanations for this: a very (too) long journey with 20 hours by train to Venice followed by 30 hours at sea on board an overloaded Yugoslavian raft, without comfort and with multiple stopovers, the poorly adapted terrain or layout of the village, the lack of beach equipment, a prolonged breakdown of the water ski boat with the difficulty of obtaining spare parts, health problems, the lack of excursion coaches from mid-August.

This is why, because of all these difficulties encountered and reported by the GMs throughout the season, Club Méditerranée discreetly decided not to repeat the Yugoslav experience the following year.

This was only a postponement because at the beginning of the 1960s, two villages built, over nearly four decades, a part of the history of Club Méditerranée: Pakostane on the one hand and Sveti Marko on the other.

Village chief Montenegro 1953: Tony HATOT