Montenegro Bay of Kotor Serpentine

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Kotor

   The Bay of Kotor looks like a fjord but is really a drowned river canyon, a series of linked basins surrounded by limestone mountains that rise nearly straight from the water. Kotor itself sits at the innermost end, a walled town tucked under a steep cliff, with a fortress that climbs the slope behind it in a zigzag line of walls. It was a Venetian possession for centuries, and its narrow lanes, stone churches and small squares have kept their medieval layout. The Cathedral of St Tryphon, from the twelfth century, is the main landmark, and cats are everywhere, as the town's unofficial mascots.

   Read the complete Kotor write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kotor is where the day begins. Next is Kotor Serpentine.

2. 2. Kotor Serpentine

   The old road out of Kotor does not waste time. It begins almost at the town walls and starts climbing at once, and the famous count is twenty-five hairpins, numbered on small signs, with the bay shrinking below you at each turn until the cruise ships in the harbour look like toys in a bath. The Austrians built it in the nineteenth century, when this coast belonged to the Habsburgs and they wanted a way up the mountain wall to the Montenegrin capital at Cetinje. The gradient is steady, the corners are tight and well engineered, and the retaining walls are old dry stone that still do their job.

   Read the complete Kotor Serpentine write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kotor Serpentine comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Krstac Pass.

3. 3. Krstac Pass

   Krstac sits at 926 metres, and it is where the serpentine finally lets go of you. The last of the hairpins from Kotor swing out onto a shoulder of limestone, the bay disappears behind you, and what lies ahead is a different Montenegro: a high plateau of stone, thin pasture and beech, with Mount Lovćen rising on your right. The name Montenegro, black mountain, makes sense up here. The slopes look dark under the forest, and in cloud they look black indeed.

   Read the complete Krstac Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 27 km into the recorded legs you reach Krstac Pass. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Cetinje, mostly downhill.

4. 4. Cetinje

   Cetinje is a small town with a big past, the old royal capital of Montenegro. It lies in a high karst basin at about 650 metres, behind the mountain wall of Lovćen, and for centuries it was the seat of the prince-bishops who ruled this stubbornly independent land. The Cetinje Monastery, founded in 1484, still holds the right hand of St John the Baptist and a fragment of the True Cross, according to tradition. The streets are lined with former embassies from the days when European powers kept legations here, and the whole town has the air of a capital that has shrunk but kept its dignity. About fifteen thousand people live here.

   Read the complete Cetinje write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cetinje closes the day.