Travel: Montenegro

Known as the Blue Train, after its gleaming livery, it was hailed as one of the most opulent trains in the world when it took to the rails in 1959. A presidential palace on wheels, it was an Art Deco masterpiece built to Tito's specifications that became his pride and joy.

For two decades, Tito and his wife Jovanka travelled in its stylish coaches in the company of invited world leaders, stopping to address and receive the accolades of crowds along the way.

After his death in 1980 the carriages languished in a hanger in Belgrade for over two decades. Now out of retirement, they have been restored to their original splendour for scenic tours between the Serbian capital and the Montenegrin coast.

It is as much a passage through time as space, into the history of what some Slavs regard nostalgically as the "golden age" of Yugoslavia under Tito's leadership, before his country was torn apart by ethnic and nationalist conflicts.

At Belgrade's ornate neo-classical main station, we find six of the original nine carriages hitched to the end of a regular train for our 12-hour journey from the Danube to the Adriatic.

Tito was a convivial host who preferred the company of his guests to sitting alone in his own carriage. The train's reception area, which is lined with velour sofas and armchairs, is where he entertained fellow leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru. Characters as disparate as Queen Elizabeth II and Yasser Arafat shared the lavish hospitality of the train, while engaging in the formalities of state visits.

But this is no museum piece. We are free to wander around Tito's private quarters, starting with a small lounge that doubled as a political platform from which he addressed crowds through an open window. For his people, the Blue Train became a travelling roadshow of world leaders orchestrated by their charismatic president.

Inside, it is a work of art fashioned from gleaming mahogany, pear and walnut, with saloons and hallways decorated in intricate marquetry. There are richly patterned oriental rugs, and silk and velvet furnishings.

Tito's office, complete with his desk and grey telephone, is dominated by a handsome inlaid wooden design of square- rigged sailing ships. Beyond, a blue bathroom with full-length bath is flanked by "his and hers" silk-lined bedrooms.

As we trundle out of Belgrade into farmland and wooded hills, a loudspeaker plays Serbian folk music, and an elderly couple start waltzing around the conference table. The jaunty Slavic version of Glen Miller dance tunes makes for a cheerful mood as we roll by wheat fields, rural villages nestling in forests, and gorges spanned by ancient stone bridges. On a country road a wedding procession is passing by, led by open carriages flying Serbian flags and drawn by black horses with cockades in their bridles.

Lunch is an international affair, with hors d'oeuvres and veal soup served in Serbia, a main course of cutlet of pork with smoked sausage dished up in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and baklava for dessert as we cross into Montenegro.

The plush dining car was reserved for Tito's aides, high-ranking military officers and political advisers, who enjoyed silver service in elegant surroundings belying their role as emissaries of a communist state. Now the polished veneer interior is adorned with photographs of Tito's guests: Leonid Brezhnev, the Shah of Iran, and Haile Selassie.

Tales of Tito, the fate of Yugoslavia and the building of the railway to Montenegro are related by guides in a series of talks in the conference saloon, and a steward who served on the train in its presidential heyday reminisces about life on board.

As we cross into Montenegro, the mountains soar higher, ravines plunge deeper and narrower, and tunnels between them are more frequent. Our passage becomes a flashing roller-coaster ride in light and darkness, with brief glimpses of a tumultuous landscape in which the railroad is an unlikely intrusion among near vertical cliffs.

It took more than 20 years to build the 300-mile line from Belgrade to Bar, an engineering marvel burrowing through 254 tunnels and spanning 435 bridges. The first train to travel on it, on May 28, 1976, was the Blue Train, with Tito and Jovanka on board.

Tito's final journey took place four years later, when his coffin was carried on his beloved train from Ljubljana to Belgrade. At every halt it attracted the largest crowds of mourners in the country's history.

As darkness falls, my wife and I retire to one of the aides' compartments for the last few miles. It is warm and comfortable, and the hypnotic clickety-click of iron wheels fosters an illusion of a ghost train, filled with the spirits of Tito and his illustrious fellow travellers, happy to journey on as long as his Blue Train runs as a symbol of a lost age.

The new age of Montenegro is a rash of glitzy developments on the "Budva Riviera". The setting of the ancient city is superb, a protective ring of mountains leading down to rocky coves ringed by pines and an azure sea that saw the passage of Greek artisans, Roman centurions and Saracen pirates.

Thankfully the fortified walls of Stari Grad, the old heart of the city, have spared its picturesque warren of alleys and squares from the predations of modern developers, and it remains a pleasant place to wander.

The real jewel of Montenegro lies a few miles up the coast, a medieval walled town with ramparts twice as long as those of Dubrovnik, on the shores of a dramatic fjord framed by mile-high mountains. Dominated by the ruins of ancient battlements and chapels on granite cliffs, Kotor is living history deserving of its UNESCO world heritage status.

The Bay of Kotorska on which it stands is a Wagnerian land and seascape, a Nordic fjord sparkling beneath the blue skies of the Adriatic. Historically it was the domain of master mariners who commanded armed merchant ships, and fought legendary sea battles with pirates.

The local heroes recruited by Peter the Great of Russia to instruct his naval officers are long gone, but images of them and their ships remain in Kotor's maritime museum, a Boys' Own treasure trove of 18th-century swords, pistols, model ships and oil paintings of moustachioed sea captains.

Outside, the old Place of Weapons is given over to cafe society and boutiques, and restaurants playing cool music, all blissfully free of motor traffic because there is barely a street wide enough for a car. In the absence of the infernal combustion engine, the alleys and squares filled with Romanesque churches and Venetian palaces are given over to pedestrians, and little boys whizzing around on bicycles.

Inevitably, Kotor attracts swarms of tourists. But barely five minutes drive to the north is a quiet, peaceful shore-side promenade that is the stuff that dreams and holiday brochures are made of.

The narrow road winding towards Dobrota is lined with ancient churches, patrician mansions and summer houses by the water's edge. There is virtually no traffic, making it perfect for strolling, cycling and swimming from bathing platforms. We drive for miles behind a man on a bicycle, with a child perched on the handlebars, because there is no room to pass them and, anyway, we are happy to pootle along admiring the scenery.

The next village, Perast, is a delight. Time does not actually stand still here, it just seems like it. Most vehicles are banished to peripheral car parks, so the pace of life among once-proud baroque mansions along the waterfront is relaxed. We pass a fire station with an antiquated fire engine parked outside. Pending something going on fire, the duty fireman is fishing from a nearby quay with rod and line.

A splendid museum in a balconied palace is devoted to local naval heroes like Admiral Matija Zmajevi, who commanded the Imperial Russian Baltic fleet, taking visitors back in time to an era of great sea adventures.

A more modest sea adventure is available with boat trips to Our Lady of the Rock, a votive chapel on a man-made island founded on the hulls of scuttled ships and boatloads of stones. It is a place to stand and stare at the drama of nature, and imagine the seafaring exploits that took place here in days of yore.

The only thing the Bay of Kotorska lacks, alas for Tito, is a railway station.

TRAVEL NOTES

Getting there and where to stay

Explore Montenegro is planning to offer seven-night packages next year with flights from London, including the Blue Train journey, hotels in Belgrade and Montenegro, guided tours and all transfers from £999pp. Visit montenegroholidays.com or call 0800 177 7460. Alternatively, Blue Train tickets only can be booked through Serbian Railways (serbianrailways.com).

Other information

It is worth hiring a car to explore the Bay of Kotor, and the ancient Montenegro capital of Cetinje - the drive from Kotor follows a mountain road with spectacular views of the bay. Can be arranged through Explore Montenegro.