From retro European splendour and Ibiza-type clubs to Ottoman bazaars, wild beaches and monumental views, the 1,200 kilometre-long Adriatic coast offers at least as much as the French and the Italian sea sides put together.

My journey begins from Opatija, northern Croatia, which is also where the Adriatic’s modern tourism began. The first resort in the history of this coast, like an ageing heart-throb, persistently turns on its outmoded charms: thick-carpeted casinos, seaside promenades shaded by palm trees, elegant villas and marinas.

About 1,200 kilometres separate Opatija from Ioannina, in Greece. According to some, this is Europe’s most dramatic coastal stretch. It crosses five state borders, six or seven completely different landscapes and a few dozen towns, while at the same time passing through the extremes of the history of the Balkans: from their merging with Western Europe to their submersion in the Orient.

The road goes by over 100 islands, most of them in Croatian territorial waters. The first one is Krk. As I drive along the bridge connecting it to the land, the bura – an extremely strong local wind, raises clouds of drops from the sea and carries them above the water like schools of flying fish. In bad weather, the bridge remains closed for days until the hurricane winds quiet down. There have been cases when, besides clouds of drops, the bura also lifted automobiles up in the air.

The island on the other side is sparsely populated and there are two small harbours filled with sailboats and history. The Bašćanska ploča, an important, stone-carved monument of medieval Croatia, was discovered in one of the Franciscan monasteries in the region. It was moved to Zagreb but the monastery keeps a duplicate, in the company of other curious relics: a dried-up anaconda, Brazilian banknotes from the nineteenth century, a church plate and a stuffed one-eyed lamb – all that hidden in this improvised museum in the thick forests of the small archipelago around Krk.



The Bašćanska ploča, created around 1100, is one of the first discovered monuments, which testify for the development of the Croatian language.

Here, everything is covered in lush greenery. But the scenery further to the south becomes raw. On the side of the land, Mount Velebit’s slopes rise with a breakneck steepness and their off-white colour, together with the ever lighter tones of the subsequent islands, forms a sharp contrast with the waters, making them look even more dark blue.

Velebit’s stern presence creates a very different atmosphere at the northern Croatian coastline, known as Kvarner. The soft nature apparent near Zadar, Šibenik and Trogir, located in Dalmatia to the south, is absent from here.

Hewn into the rocks over the sea, the road starts winding along the coast’s profile. Small fishermen’s villages remain underneath it; microscopic inlets holding the promise of seclusion.

I head to one of them – Starigrad kod Senja. The side road starts off innocently enough – it is quite wide, cutting across some low bushes. At the next turn, however, I am forced to stop.

My eyes tell me that there is not enough room for four tyres to fit on the road before me. In order to drive on it, I need to trust the dubious common sense of the people who have driven on it before me. I peek over the precipice, as to make sure that there are no automobile remains down below. But there are! I drive the remaining kilometre in first gear.

A few dozen stone houses are reflected in the clear water of the inlet; on the water, there are some still blue and green fishing boats. In the foreground, there is a restaurant with a vine. And that’s all. All you need. This blissful minimalism is characteristic for dozens of small settlements – not quite villages, but rather a few houses clustered by the water, along Velebit’s entire length.

The island Rab is visible about ten kilometres into the sea. Franciscans, Dominicans and Venetian Dogi worked on the architecture of the island’s interior over the centuries. From the land, not much is visible and the rocks look uninhabited.

Rab, along with the Pag Island just south of it, forms the western coast of the Velebit channel – a strip of sea running along the foot of the mountain like a strait. Its waters are usually calm, because the islands serve as a natural breakwater.

Pag is more than 100 kilometres long. The cattle breeders, who have inhabited it for over ten centuries, produce one of Croatia’s sources of pride – Paški sir, or ‘cheese of Pag’, which is a local version of the Italian parmigiano. The similarities between Croatian Adriatic cuisine and Italian cuisine are more than the differences – besides simply and deliciously cooked fish, one of the traditional foods of the region is home-made pasta.

South of Pag is Zadar, one of the most beautiful and exemplary Venetian towns on the Adriatic. Similar to most settlements on the Croatian coast, it contains a well-preserved old town in its centre, created or influenced by the Serenissima Republic. Unlike many places in Italy, it is only moderately polished, and – despite being highly dependent on tourism, it has retained a life of its own.



The coastline from Istria to Kotor is the only land in the Balkans that didn’t sleep through the European Renaissance. Zadar and the subsequent three larger towns to the south of it – Šibenik, Trogir and Split, are amongst the cultural centres that produced the only examples of Balkan Renaissance and Humanism.

Going through this part of Dalmatia is painful for people from the interior of the Balkans – every street in the old towns shows the possibility of a better history of the region, but one that never took place.

In Split, Trogir and on the island of Rab, there are preserved many buildings by Andrija Aleši – the sculptor of Albanian descent who mixed Gothic and Renaissance styles and became one of Dalmatia’s most famous architects in the fifteenth century. His life’s masterpiece is considered to be the Chapel of Blessed John from Trogir.

The public life in all of these towns at the time was similar to that of Venice – centred around naval trade and marked by a widespread passion for the early forms of theatre.

Marko Marulić, one of the earliest humanists on the peninsula and the man considered to be the founder of Croatian literature, lived and worked in Split. His play, Judita – a dramatization of a Biblical tale, is the first piece by a Croatian writer in his own language. Until it was written in 1501, Croatia’s literature was developed exclusively in Latin.

Following Marko Marulić, dozens of Croatian writers left a remarkable spiritual heritage, working in parallel with Europe’s great minds of that era. The Renaissance influence grew from a mere fad into a trademark of this place, transforming the décor of events forever – regardless of whether the events in question had to do with the development of tourism or with the unfolding of the next war between the Balkan countries.

Still further to the south, the towns become less attractive but the sea livens up, crisscrossed by sailboats and ships.

Near Ploče, the emerald Neretva River flows into the Adriatic through an impressive canyon. Then come the few kilometres of Bosnian coast. The two border crossing points, six kilometres apart from one another, are passed almost without a halt. The only inhabited place in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s strip, Neum, betrays all the bitterness of the republic’s people from the loss of access to the Adriatic – through the horrifying overdevelopment.

After crossing the Bosnian corridor, the road re-enters Croatian territory, edging closer to two of the Dalmatian coast’s pearls: the Ston peninsula on the right, notable with its many oyster plantations, and Venice’s most important historical rival in the region – Dubrovnik.

Even though there is a map showing the damage from the 1990s Yugoslav wars at the entrance to the old town, this period is not felt beyond the fortress walls. The main streets and squares are entirely taken over by tourism, while the small streets, 100 metres to the side, are inhabited by locals, who live a beautiful but hard life on a steep hill.



That is more or less the end of the Croatian stretch. 40 kilometres to the south lies the border with Montenegro and the start of the stunning Kotor fjord. The bay, around 60 kilometres in diameter is not only a natural, but an aesthetic phenomenon. Surrounded by two high mountains and overgrown with wild pomegranates, the fjord is one of the most magical places on the Adriatic. During the winter’s short days, its waters are almost black – not reached by the sun, which peaks over the cliff tops late in the day. On the small islands scattered around its interior, churches have been built, while the two larger towns - Kotor and Herzeg Novi are miniature, but less touristy, copies of Dubrovnik.

Further south, Budva is the last town where the Venetian influence can be felt. The long and underdeveloped stretch along the Skadar Lake begins, going into Albanian territory. The border control point is 20 kilometres into the mainland, then the road returns to the coast near Lezhë.

While occasional traffic jams lessen the pleasure of the coastal drive in Croatia and Montenegro, in Albania the bad condition of the road can also be a hassle. The potholes and badly constructed roads are combined with heavy traffic: slow cars, bicycles, horse-drawn carts and old trucks.

The Albanian coastline is undergoing the most dynamic development on the Adriatic in the last decade. The deserted beaches which used to attract adventurous tourists in the mid-1990s are starting to disappear irrevocably. In the region of the largest port town, Duras, they are long gone; they also diminishing in a growing radius around Vliora, where local entrepreneurs are slowly building up a Balkan replica of Cannes – in the colour of bananas and ashy pink.

Despite all that, Albania remains among Europe’s least spoilt regions. South of Vliora the coast becomes wilder, the Dinaric Alps rising up from the land. Somewhere there, where the Adriatic flows into the Ionian Sea, are Southern Europe’s best beaches. For now. The horrifying and out-of-control development of Saranda may not pass them by, but – at least for the next few years, they will continue to make the long drive on the slow roads worthwhile.

Going through the last border before Ioannina, the one separating Albania from Greece, is a locally-spiced adventure. The obstacle before the border control point – a small but quick and high-watered river – is surmounted on a rope-pulled ferry.

The subsequent five kilometres are the last bunker-strewn landscape before the border with the European Union. The even asphalt is back and 50 kilometres further, the road enters Ioannina.

After Albania’s architectural pause, the taste of the Ottoman heritage starts being felt here. More precisely – the heritage of the sinister Ali Pasha – one of the cruellest and most rebellious governors of the Sublime Porte in history.

Pursuing policies that were independent of Istanbul and brutal to the local, mostly Orthodox Christian, population, he built a majestic fortress and the old town near the Pamvotidha Lake – they now make for Ioannina’s magic. When Lord Byron visited Ali Pasha in 1809, he described the town as “superior in wealth, refinement and learning” to all others in Greece.

From Opatija to Ioannina, the trip goes through modern states as much as through empires long gone. The 1,200 kilometres of coastline contain evidence of their spiritual stimuli and destructiveness, their rivalries and contradictions. They offer a trip through the history of the Balkans – the way it was and the way it could have been.