A major £2.4bn motorway project is set to ease traffic chaos in a tiny European country – after long delays.

The A-1 motorway runs through Montenegro, a tiny Balkan nation, with the first stretch of the 103-mile long road opening to the public for the first time in 2022.

The road is also known as the Princess Xenia highway, named after a Montenegrin princess who was said to be the first woman to drive a car in the Eastern European region.

Work on the motorway was first announced in 2008, two years after the tiny nation of 623,000 people declared independence from neighbouring Serbia.

Costs have soared due to factors including alleged local corruption and delays in construction.

The first completed stretch of road was originally set to open in 2019, however it did not open to the public until three years later.

The road, which is being built in three stages, includes at least 10 tunnels – with construction starting in 2015.

These include the Vjeternik Tunnel, which sits in the middle section of the motorway and is almost two miles long.

There are also a number of bridges along the route, including the Moračica bridge.

This huge construction runs for more than 3,000 feet, and at one point the road runs 656 feet above the ground below.

The road is part of a larger project between Montenegro and Serbia, known as the Belgrade-Bar motorway.

When that entire route is completed, it will link Belgrade, the Serbian capital, with the Montenegrin port city of Bar, via its capital of Podgorica.

The full motorway would run for a length of 277 miles.