May 30, 2018 - The sixties were a time of significant change and the years in which Budva, as Vlado Duletić writes, made the most significant leap forward in its history.
In the year when the world just came out of the Nuclear War threat over the Cuba missile crisis, when President Kennedy was assassinated, in August when Martin Luther King held his "I have a Dream" speech at the National Mall when Vietnam war was becoming very serious, Yugoslavia was changing too. It was 1963, and it was the end of a strong communist repression period when everything seemed to be thriving, and it was. For the next 25 year,s Yugoslavia was a prosperous and peaceful country, and Budva used the chance to turn into a significant center of the country's tourism.
Budva started building its first apartment blocks out of the fortification walls of the Old Town. This was possible due to the first organized and well-structured tourism industry. Until then, hotel Avala was the only hotel which could host larger groups of tourists. But then, in the sixties, the Budva Riviera concept started to develop. "Slavia, "Park", "Internacional" hotels popped up in no time.
The government invested in road infrastructure - the Podgorica-Cetinje-Budva road namely, air traffic developed, and as you can see in this video, the cinema industry made the first promotional videos.
It was the time of Richard Barton and Elizabeth Taylor, the first Hollywood movie "Long Boats" with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier in lead roles, which were made in Budva then.
The Mediterranean village with its rhythm and charm started becoming a town which would become one of the essential Montenegrin cities.
The capital of its tourism, as locals like to brag.
