The vista is quintessentially Mediterranean – a shimmering blue bay and craggy limestone mountains framed by the swaying fronds of palm trees.
But a picturesque corner of Montenegro was turned into Chelsea-on-Sea this weekend when Eton- and Oxford-educated Nat Rothschild, the billionaire scion of the world's most famous banking dynasty, celebrated his 40th birthday with three days of lavish entertainment.
The £1 million party kicked off on Friday night, when 400 of his friends attended an event billed as a "Disco Soiree" around a newly-built, 215ft-long infinity pool in Porto Montenegro, a marina development which is intended to put this tiny Balkan country on the map for the world's super-yacht owners.
The cost was no problem for the former Bullingdon Club member – his fortune was estimated earlier this year to have exceeded £1 billion, partly due to the soaring price of commodities in which he has invested. It has been speculated that a string of savvy business ventures could make him the richest Rothschild of them all.
Long-legged young British women in short skirts and high heels unfolded from a cavalcade of sleek black Audis and Mercedes, bringing a touch of the King's Road to a jewel of the Balkans that during its heyday in the 1960s was the playground of Princess Margaret, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
Many of them were staying in the Hotel Splendid, a luxury hotel overlooking a broad bay in the historic town of Budva, Montenegro's answer to Ibiza.
"This place has become like a bar on Sloane Square overnight," said one resident of Porto Montenegro, which aims to become the 21st century Monte Carlo, with 600 apartments, luxury roof-top penthouses and berths for 630 yachts.
"A month or two ago we'd nicknamed it Porto Moscow, there were so many Russians around. But it's a completely different atmosphere with all the British here. It's a welcome sight – we don't want this place to be taken over by Russians."
Guests came from the worlds of fashion, high finance, politics, commodities and even royalty.
They included Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary, who stayed on Sveti Stefan, a fortified 15th century village on an island just down the coast which has been converted into a five-star boutique resort where suites can cost up to 2,500 euros a night.
He rubbed shoulders with Eddie Jordan, the Formula One driver, who owns an apartment overlooking the marina and the Wimbledon tennis champion Novak Djokovic, who has also just bought a luxury flat and keeps a yacht in the marina.
Tamara Mellon, the British co-founder of the Jimmy Choo luxury shoe brand, and Sasha Volkova, Ukrainian supermodel, were also at the party.
The one royal guest was believed to be King Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi, the leader of the 300,000 strong Royal Bafokeng Nation, a semi-autonomous tribal area in South Africa which is rich in platinum – another contact from Mr Rothschild's interests in minerals.
Egypt's richest family, the Sawiris, were also there – checking out the competition, in the light of the fact that they are building a £1 billion marina and hotel development on the other side of the Bay of Kotor, one of the largest harbours on the Adriatic coast.
The guest list was meant to be secret but was thought to have included the historian Niall Ferguson and his Dutch-Somali wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, members of the Guinness and Goldsmith families, Tony Hayward, the former BP boss whose name was tarnished by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Roland Rudd, the head of the public relations firm Finsbury and Princess Florence von Preussen, 27, the great-great granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who has an "on and off" relationship with Mr Rothschild.
As the sun dipped behind distant mountains, guests were taken by launch to the pier on which the infinity pool is built and handed flutes of Taittinger Champagne and Bellini cocktails.
They then sat down to dinner around the pool, with grilled squid and prawns, mozzarella, focaccia and olives as the antipasti starters, grilled local fish with salad for the main course and panna cotta with wild berries and an almond torte for dessert.
Mr Rothschild and his father, Lord Rothschild, gave speeches, followed by dancing till 5am, with the music provided by DJs and a female singer in a glittering silver dress with a miniature disco ball in her hair. A fleet of six haulage trucks had brought five tonnes of food and wine all the way from the UK.
The whole venue, which until hours before the start of the party had been a frantic building site swarmed over by mostly British construction workers, was cordoned off by thick-set Montenegrin security guards wearing dark suits and ear-pieces.
The party chatter ranged from the latest catwalk fashions to the massive profits to be made from gold mining in Kazakhstan and the perils of doing business in Russia, reflecting the eclectic range of guests.
A jaw-dropping array of super-yachts were moored in what has been acclaimed as "the world's hippest new harbour", most of them registered in tax bolt-holes such as the Cayman Islands, the Grenadines, Gibraltar and the Isle of Man.
One of them, the £60 million White Rose of Drachs, belongs to British multi-millionaire property developer Michael Evans, 75, owner of the Evans Property Group.
For days, private jets swooped from a cloudless sky and landed at the nearby airport of Tivat, along with a privately-owned 737 from the Middle East.
"It has gold fittings and belongs to an Arab sheikh," said Philip Sokovic, 26, who works at the airport. "It's so huge that it's not allowed to stay on the tarmac so they removed it to Dubrovnik. Crazy rich people!"
Among the guests was the former prime minister of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, who gave the go-ahead to the development a few years ago after flying over the area in a helicopter with Peter Munk, the billionaire head of the world's largest gold company and the marina's majority investor.
"He may no longer be prime minister, but he is still king around here," said one insider. "The current prime minister is his protégé and would never have been appointed without his blessing."
Mr Munk's huge yacht, Golden Eagle, was one of two dozen docked in the marina, with the largest, the Queen K, belonging to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminium oligarch and close friend of Mr Rothschild's who also has a stake in Porto Montenegro.
Crew members in immaculately pressed white shirts and epaulettes stood to attention at the end of gangplanks as their wealthy owners finished their sundowners and headed for the festivities.
The birthday celebrations continued yesterday with a "hangover lunch" in 95F sunshine around the Mar Lido infinity pool and, for those with the stamina, a sunset party on a pier lined with palm trees, alongside Mr Deripaska's 240ft-long, £80 million gin palace.
"Peter Munk made a joke about what can you give a billionaire who has everything," said one British party-goer. "He said Nat doesn't need anything because the best presents in his life are the success of his businesses."
The three days of no-expense-spared events was an unofficial launch party for Porto Montenegro, which has been built on the dilapidated remains of a Communist-era naval base.
The developers had to clear the waterfront of the rusting hulks of old warships, although they did manage to salvage a submarine, and are thinking of turning it into a cocktail bar.
Touted by its backers as "Europe's fastest-growing nautical destination", it lies at the heart of some of the Mediterranean's most dramatic and unspoilt coastal scenery.
A golf course and an international school will be built and a nearby commercial shipyard will be turned into a maintenance and repainting dock for super-yachts, some of which reach 300ft in length.
"This is Montenegro's biggest development," said Mark Harrison, the British lawyer for the project. "If Montenegro is going to take off, it will be through tourism, not industry. We're offering berths for dramatically less than the South of France.
"This will be the Mediterranean's biggest mega-yacht facility and it will put the country on the map."
Maja Vujaskovic, public relations manager for Porto Montenegro, said: "We are effectively building a whole town from scratch. The idea is that people live here permanently – it's not meant to be a holiday resort, but a living, breathing community."
But with penthouse suites selling for as much as €3 million, it will be a "community" only within reach of the super-rich metals magnates and hedge fund managers who celebrated Mr Rothschild's birthday in such style.
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