Kotor Serpentine

Sea-level hairpin wall climbing high above the Bay of Kotor.

From the edge of Kotor at sea level, this old Austrian-era road claws straight up the limestone wall of the bay in a relentless stack of tight switchbacks, gaining nearly 900 metres in barely three kilometres as the crow flies. Around twenty-five numbered hairpins fold back on themselves, each one opening a wider view over the fjord-like bay, the red roofs of the walled town and the cruise ships far below, before the gradient eases toward Njeguši and the Lovćen massif. The surface is paved but the lane is often a single car wide, walled by bare rock on one side and an open drop on the other. Mind the narrow two-way ledges, the absent barriers and the tour buses that can force you to reverse on the edge.