After more than 2,000 inland miles, the air turned salty, and the European continent fell away to the Adriatic. A mix of feelings surged through me. Since rolling away from England, our journey had been defined by quiet roads, solitary climbs, and warm but rare encounters. With the land finally giving way to a dense blue bay, I knew that was about to change. Locals had warned us: Montenegro’s 183-mile coastline attracted almost 95 percent of the country’s visitors. Where the hinterlands felt timeless and untouched, the shore pulsed with cities, ports, marinas—life moving to the ever-quickening beat of cruise ships and construction.

Still, curiosity pulled us on. This was a coastline layered with folklore and history—Illyrians, Venetians, Ottomans—all set amongst supposedly staggering scenery. I wonder how it could all blend together. After nearly six months inland, we began our descent to the Bay of Kotor, spiralling down empty switchbacks in the balmy evening light, Sarah grinning wildly. Spring humidity thickened as the peaks rose sharply around us. Our tyres bumped over old cobbles, through a tight maze of houses, and at last onto a warm stretch of promenade.

The sea reminded us of its peaceful song instantly. Swifts and seagulls darted overhead; the breeze brought us salt, coffee, and a hint of petrol from passing scooters. Locals chatted at waterfront cafés. Harbour lights shimmered. It all swirled together into something truly magical.

Ahead, 1,000-metre peaks wrapped the bay like a fortress, cradling a dense mass of Adriatic green water. Coastal communities clung to the narrow strip between mountain and sea. The landscape looked distinctly glacial, but locals explained it was actually a submerged river canyon, its four basins linked by a single narrow passage to the open sea. That natural protection had lured traders and sailors for centuries. Fishing, citrus, and olives once anchored life here, but since the 1980s, with such natural beauty, many had steered towards tourism. And with this change, the surrounding natural amphitheatre had become a microcosm of vivid contrasts; we would see how the old held against the new.

“Lady of the Rocks?” a voice asked beside me.

An elderly seafarer, captain’s hat drooping over his weathered brow, repeated, “You go to Lady of the Rocks? Very beautiful. Very legendary.”

“What makes it legendary?” Sarah asked, smiling.

He told us that centuries ago, sailors found an icon of the Virgin Mary and child floating in the bay. Believing it a sign of protection, they vowed to build an island where it had appeared. Since then, sailors have cast stones in that very spot, gradually creating the island, now adorned with a church. Locals still pay homage before heading out to sea. “Life here is all legend,” he told us.

We traded jokes about boats and bikes, explaining our plan to loop the bay, then follow the Adriatic north to Croatia and eventually south to Albania. It was no groundbreaking feat of exploration, but—we hoped—a perfect way to see coastal life at its truest.

Setting off, dreamy conditions tugged at our pedals, urging us to slow, but the perimeter road had other ideas. Speeding vehicles pushed us forward, our legs quickening to keep pace with the eager cars that flew by.

“Zdravo!” an elderly man shouted, hand-reeling from a wooden jetty, his rusted bicycle leaning beside him. We waved, whilst noticing a Goodfellas-themed hotel complex just 100 metres away, with a rusted pipe oozing dark sludge into the same small bay. We pedal past its 10-foot poster of Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, and Robert De Niro, thinking about these two eras that now share the same few feet of waterfront.

Further along, the pace shifted again, rising with the rhythm of local life. We creaked along old boardwalks, past marinas and fisheries, under Mimosa trees and through bustling markets. Delivery trucks honked us aside as we joined the inter-town dash, dodging overtaking lorries and trying to soak up what we could. Then, an opening. A sleepy coastal lane pulled us off the main road, and everything changed.

“This feels like a different world,” I said to Sarah. Just a few hundred metres away, but now slow, lapping waters quieten the roar of traffic and my racing pace. White-stone houses with terracotta roofs lined the shore, front doors open, windows enlivened with flowers, and families gathered on shared jetties out front, their small wooden boats bobbing beside them. Fishing nets dried in the sun. Olive trees rustled with elderly women beneath. It all felt suspended in time. We jumped in the clear water, letting it wash away any memory of the thundering road. This novel lack of adversity felt unbelievable. “I think this is the most relaxed I’ve been in months,” I said to Sarah, floating beside me.

On shore, we had fresh homemade bread, a tart local cheese, and tomatoes so perfectly sweet it reminded us they were fruit. All delicious and bought from a roadside farmer’s market. The locals proudly told us it was all from the surrounding hills, whilst showering us with tasters and shots of Rajika, the regional homebrew.

Across the bay, drums and pipes cut through the quiet. Nearly 100 men, women, and children—part of the Boka Navy—paraded along the esplanade in brilliantly embroidered jackets and burgundy waistcoats, each wearing the Montenegrin kapa with pride. Perfectly white Venetian facades bring out these marvellous attires, with looming cliffs standing to attention overhead. This is one of the oldest navies in the world, with a long history of navigation and cultural preservation dating back to 809 AD. Now, they mark the 1654 Battle of Perast, when local sailors repelled an overwhelming Ottoman and pirate force. For a moment, I could almost see these great wooden beasts bringing scores of grizzled pirates to raid and plunder, with the town in bedlam, trying to repel them. My mind drifted until the tear of a passing speedboat brought me back to modernity.

“Most of the big boats go to Kotor,” a photographer from a local newspaper explained. “You should go. It’s really a fascinating place.” He told us the legend of the fairy Alkima, who was said to live high on the cliffs, protecting the bay. Long ago, sailors climbed the mountains in search of a new settlement, and she warned them: in the mountains, there is no water, no sea, no life. Build by the sea, for only the sea can feed and protect you.

And so they listened, settling where land met water. This, he said, was how Kotor was born. Over millennia, Illyrian tribes, Romans, Byzantines, and Venetians had come on their ships, from rowing boats to steamboats in the 1950s. Now, vast cruise liners bring more than 10,000 visitors a day. Life really thrives by water, I thought to myself.

The quiet harbour lane ended, and we left the maritime festivities. Under a gathering storm, we rejoined the fast road towards the city. Thunder cracked across the mountains as a commanding cruise ship churned past us on its way to port. Old villages blurred by—tiny cafés, small fisheries, crumbling churches with bells trembling in the wind. Gradually, like jumping forward in time, the crowds thickened, the roads widened, and we found ourselves dwarfed beside these towering ships at the docks.

Kotor itself was a rush. So many eras and empires crammed into this small corner between land and sea. People from all over the world come to glimpse this unique blend of nature, culture, and history—the fortress, once shielding from siege, now holding a vast swath of bars and ice creameries, cats, and restaurants. We ducked into a bakery, ordered burek, and chatted with locals about the cruise ships. I notice the hands of the older generation: thick and weathered, telling of a physical life; the younger hands told a markedly different story. But almost all admitted they didn’t like the cruise ships, though many depended on the income they brought. “The small fisherman cannot fish anymore. The big boats scare the fish away.” Life here was still bound to the sea, but now in quite a different way.

Rain returned as we climbed the sweeping serpentines out of town. Gaining height, I looked back over the landscape we’d just passed through: peaks and ports, beaches and bell towers, folklore and modernity woven together. This bay of legends felt caught in a delicate moment between times. Water had shaped it all, from the geological birth of the basins, to the fairy’s ancient warning, to the long lineage of sailors who sought favour on fabled islands before hard voyages. Time had progressed—the ancestors of those first fishermen now owned fleets of speedboats; the first explorers who rowed to shore, the ancestors of investors now building the waterfront resorts.

This is obviously not the only place wrestling with a tourism-driven future, but rarely have I seen the two worlds sit so closely side by side. Lore and tradition still lie proudly, just beneath the surface, right next to the parasols, and somehow, it works, adding all the more intrigue and wonder. We reach the top of the climb. I look back and can’t help but smile at these enduring peaks and waters, knowing we are but momentary visitors in a land that will outlast us all.

It was just a bay. And for us, it was only the beginning. Our journey along the coastline had finally begun—and if you want to see it unfold, the full video tells the rest of the story.

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