Kotor

Tucked into the tranquil innermost recess of Boka Kotorska (the Bay of Kotor), where sheer 1,000-metre-high Dinaric karst mountains plunge straight into a 28-kilometre-long drowned river canyon off the Adriatic Sea, Kotor is the best-preserved medieval walled town on the eastern Adriatic coast. Governed for nearly four centuries (1420 to 1797) as Cattaro under the Venetian Republic, its triangular Old Town (Stari Grad) is enclosed by 4.5 kilometres of massive Cyclopean and Venetian stone ramparts that zig-zag 260 vertical metres up the vertical cliff of St John's Hill (San Giovanni). Following a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake on 15 April 1979, both the Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor and the Baroque captains' town of Perast were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List (Reference 125) that same year.

Within its three fortified gates, car-free marble lanes open onto Venetian noble palaces, the 1166 Romanesque Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, and sunny plazas watched over by Kotor's famous community of resident street cats.

Land at Tivat Airport (TIV) just 8 kilometres away through the Vrmac road tunnel (15 minutes by €15 to €20 official taxi), Podgorica Airport (85 minutes), or Dubrovnik Airport in Croatia (70 km, 1.5 to 2.5 hours depending on summer border queues).

Choose between boutique 15th-century stone palazzos inside car-free Stari Grad, waterfront villas with private stone swimming piers (ponte) along sunny Dobrota or quiet Muo and Prčanj, or 18th-century Baroque mansions in Perast.

Climb the 1,350 steps of the San Giovanni Fortress or hike the free zig-zagging Ladder of Kotor, visit the 1166 Cathedral of Saint Tryphon and Maritime Museum, take a €5.00 boat from Perast to Our Lady of the Rocks, ride a speedboat to the Blue Cave, and ascend the 11-minute Kotor to Lovćen Cable Car.

Feast on black cuttlefish risotto (crni rižoto), Boka-style mussels steamed in white wine and garlic (mušlje na buzaru), wood-smoked Njeguški pršut cured high in the Lovćen mountains, and a slice of custard-and-meringue Kotorska krempita.

For over eight hundred years, the Boka Navy (Bokeljska mornarica, founded in 809 CE when Venetian merchants brought the relics of Saint Tryphon from Constantinople to Kotor) has shaped a unique maritime culture where Catholic and Serbian Orthodox churches stand side by side across the bay.