Kotor is a walled medieval town squeezed between a vertical limestone mountain and a deep green bay, and the whole arrangement looks almost too neat to be real. The bay is not a fjord, as people like to say, but a drowned river canyon, a ria, whose channels twist inland in several arms so that the mountains seem to close behind you as you ride around it. Black Mountain, Montenegro itself, takes its name from the dark forest on Mount Lovcen, which rises straight above the town to nearly fifteen hundred metres.
The old town has a Venetian look because Venice ruled here from 1420 until 1797, and the lion of St Mark still sits on the gate. The walls climb the hill behind it to a ruined fortress, and the climb on the steps takes a sweaty half hour but rewards you with a view over the red roofs and the bay. The Cathedral of St Tryphon dates from the twelfth century, and the town has a quirky devotion to its cats. In summer, cruise ships dock beside the walls and the narrow lanes fill with tour groups, so go in the early morning or the evening if you can.
The riding is the real treat. The old road up from Kotor to Njegusi, with its twenty-five hairpins, is one of the great motorbike climbs of the Balkans, tight and steep and decorated with views over the bay that get better with every bend. The surface can be rough in places, and in summer there is a lot of tourist traffic, including buses, so patience is needed. At the top you cross to the old royal capital of Cetinje and on toward Podgorica. Back at sea level, the coast road around the bay passes the little baroque town of Perast and the island churches in front of it.
Fuel is available in Kotor and in Dobrota just to the north, and there are plenty of cafes and fish restaurants along the bay front. Rain can be heavy in autumn and winter, since the mountains behind Kotor are among the wettest in Europe, and summer afternoons are hot and slow. Late spring and September are ideal.