Porto Montenegro. Ten minutes from the runway to the passerelle.

Porto Montenegro occupies the waterfront of what was the Yugoslav navy's shipyard at Tivat, and the scale of the old yard is why the marina can do what smaller Adriatic harbours cannot. There are more than 500 berths, a run of superyacht quays taking vessels to around 250 metres, deep water inshore and a proper working infrastructure behind it: fuel, technical support, a haul out facility and the fleet of contractors that follows a refit business around. Behind the quays is a walkable village of apartments, shops, restaurants, a hotel, a yacht club and a crew club, which matters more than it sounds. A guest can arrive, walk two hundred metres and be somewhere civilised, which is not true of every deep water berth on this coast.

The setting is the other half of the argument. The Bay of Kotor is a flooded river canyon, so the water is deep and enclosed and the mountains come down to it. Kotor, Perast and Herceg Novi are all a short run away by car or by tender, and the open Adriatic is half an hour out through the Verige strait.

Tivat is a small international field with a single runway of about 2,500 metres, sitting in a valley with high ground on both sides. Two things follow. The first is that it operates in daylight rather than around the clock, so a late departure from London does not land here: it lands at Dubrovnik or Podgorica, and the day ends with a road transfer and a border rather than a ten minute drive. The second is that the approach is genuinely demanding, crosswinds are common and low cloud on the mountains diverts aircraft more often than the weather at sea level suggests it should. Ask for a realistic view of the diversion plan at the quote stage, not on the morning.

So the shape of a good Porto Montenegro day is: fly earlier than you would elsewhere, land in daylight with margin, and accept that a two hour delay at the London end is the delay that costs you the short transfer. If the aircraft is too large for Tivat or the timing cannot work, Dubrovnik is the practical alternative and the road runs down the coast and over a border. Build that border into the timing: it is short when it is quiet and genuinely long on an August afternoon. For the flight itself see private jet charter and midsize jets, and we will tell you plainly which categories suit the field.

Porto Montenegro is an easier place to arrive than most marinas on this coast. It is a controlled site with gates, internal roads and parking, so a car can normally bring guests close to the berth, set down with crew present and then park properly rather than circling. The superyacht quays are long and security directs vehicles rather than letting them find their own way, so give us the berth number and the arrival window and the set down is agreed before anyone arrives rather than negotiated at the gate.

Two local details. Montenegro is not in the EU or Schengen although it uses the euro, so any car crossing from Croatia or Albania passes a real border with real formalities, and a hire car brought over a border is a different proposition from a car and driver based locally. And the Verige strait ferry across the narrows shortens the run to Herceg Novi and the bay mouth considerably when it is running, which is worth confirming for a winter itinerary rather than assuming.

The Adriatic charter season is broadly May to early October, with July and August the busiest and the bay at its warmest. Shoulder months here are unusually good: late May, June and September give you settled weather, an emptier bay and a marina that is not working at its limit. Cruise ship calls at Kotor are the local variable that changes a day ashore, because the old town and the road around the head of the bay both fill when two ships are in.

The other thing that sets Porto Montenegro apart is winter. A growing number of yachts lie here between seasons for refit and crew rotation, so owners and guests visit in months when most Mediterranean marinas are asleep. If you are coming out to see a yacht in January rather than to cruise, the plan is different: daylight landing windows are shorter, the mountain roads carry snow at altitude, and the useful part of the day is smaller than it looks on paper. See Croatia and Montenegro for the wider picture, and how charter works for the way an itinerary is put together.