Bay of Kotor
in Montenegro

The Adriatic has no shortage of beautiful coastline, but the Bay of Kotor does something different. The mountains here do not stop at the water; they drop straight into it, enclosing a series of interconnected inlets that feel more like a fjord than the Mediterranean. Kotor itself is a walled medieval city in extraordinary condition, its stone lanes barely wide enough for two people, its cats famously proprietorial. Perast sits further along the bay in near-perfect Baroque silence, with two small islands floating just offshore. The whole thing is best seen by boat, slowly, in the early morning before anyone else has worked that out.