Forte Mare, the fortress guarding Herceg Novi's harbour

If Kanli kula watches over Herceg Novi from above, Forte Mare does it from the water. The name says it all, «sea fortress», and it sits on the rock overlooking the promenade and the harbour. For centuries it controlled the way into town by sea, and it’s my favourite spot in the old town to watch the light fade over the mouth of the bay.

Six centuries on one rock

The Herceg Novi tourist board describes the fortress as the core of the medieval town founded by Tvrtko I in 1382, built in stages between the 14th and 17th centuries. All that remains of the earliest phase is a section of wall on the south-east side and a narrow staircase on the east. The biggest rebuild was Ottoman, giving it its present dimensions and the nickname «the strong fortress». In the 17th century the Venetians restored it and gave it the name it still bears, and later the Austro-Hungarians, who are responsible for how it looks today, upgraded the upper section and used it as a military communications centre.

The spring and the Sea Gate

At the foot of the fortress is a spring with a story. In 1687 the forces of the Holy League, Venetians, Spaniards and papal troops, drained it and left the town without drinking water, which made the conquest easier. Above the spring, a marble plaque carries lines by the poet Aleksa Šantić dedicated to the Bay of Kotor. Higher up is the Sea Gate, with elements of the fortifications from the Bosnian period, which the tourist board rates among the finest defensive architecture in town. Within the walls a passage climbs from the shore to the top. The tourist board rounds off its entry with lines by the writer Miloš Crnjanski, who saw an unusually blue sea beneath Forte Mare, purple sea urchins on the bottom, and imagined Admiral Barbarossa’s sieges from its walls. Read them up there, with the water below, and they make more sense.

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Cinema beneath the battlements

In 1952 the fortress was turned into a summer stage, and it has been screening open-air films for over six decades. In June, which I describe in Montenegro weather in June, it also hosts Choose Vision, a festival of one and two-night electronic music events. If your dates line up with a show, it’s a wonderful way to see the fortress after dark. The tourist board’s website doesn’t publish daytime hours or an admission price, so I won’t guess them. The Herceg Fest cultural centre runs the summer programme in the fortresses, so check what’s on there.

How to combine it

I’d walk down to Forte Mare after climbing Kanli kula, late in the afternoon, then carry on along the promenade towards Igalo for dinner by the sea. For somewhere to sleep nearby, hotels in Herceg Novi splits the options into the old town, the promenade and the Kumbor coast.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Forte Mare on GetYourGuide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Herceg Novi for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.