At a distance of 4 nautical miles northwest from Ulcinj, between Mavrijan and Mendra, in the shape of a narrow horseshoe, there is the grove Valdanos. Its gardens protecting this grove are descending abruptly and deeply sinking into the sea, whereas its beach consists of pebbles, stones with a radius between 1 and 20 cm. It is 800 m long.
Unlike other groves this one is protected from both southern and northern winds and therefore it used to serve as a shelter for ships when there was a storm coming. At the bottom of the grove and in the middle of the seashore there was a quarantine. In order to protect the citizens from the diseases which might have attacked the ships’ crew during their voyages, and prior to sailing in, the ships had to spend some time in the quarantine.
In 1833 one of the Ulcinj ships – a „brigantin“ sailed in from Alexandria with its crew infected, so that the Ulcinj port authority ordered to keep it in the quarnatine for 40 days. The pebble bottom which was formed by making the stones smaller takes about 14,000 sqm of useful area.